The Madhya Pradesh High Court today issued notices to state's minister Narottam Mishra and Congress leader Rajendra Bharti on a PIL demanding that the seat held by the former in the Legislative Assembly be declared vacant.
The Election Commission last month disqualified Mishra, MLA from Datia, for three years on a complaint filed by Bharti.
While issuing the notices seeking their response, the division bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and V K Shukla also ordered that Bharti be made a respondent to the PIL, and posted the next hearing to July 11.
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The state government's lawyer submitted that the petition should not be treated as a PIL as a writ petition filed by Mishra against the EC's order is already being heard by the High Court's Gwalior bench and will come up for further hearing on July 10.
The HC, however, rejected this argument.
In his PIL, journalist Surendra Dubey has said after the EC disqualified Mishra for three years, further action -- declaration that a seat in the Assembly has fallen vacant -- should follow.
"I asked the court to take further action after the EC's disqualification of Mishra for three years," Ajay Raizada, the petitioner's lawyer, told PTI.
The EC had disqualified Mishra on June 23 for allegedly filing wrong accounts of election expenses in 2008 Assembly elections.
Bharti, who lost to Mishra from Datia constituency in 2008, had approached the EC on the issue.
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