Supreme Court restores Congress leader’s election petition challenging BJP MP Kripanath Mallah’s 2024 poll win

The Supreme Court on Monday set aside the Gauhati High Court’s dismissal of an election petition challenging Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament Kripanath Mallah’s victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. [Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury v. Kripanath Mallah and Others].Congress candidate and Senior Advocate Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury had challenged Mallah's election on the ground that the BJP leader had employed corrupt practices to win the elections from Assam's Karimganj parliamentary constituency.In April 2025, however, the Gauhati High Court, dismissed Choudhury's petition on noting certain defects in it. The High Court did not go into the merits of the case. A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran today allowed Chowdhury's appeal against this ruling. The top court held that the defects cited by the High Court to dismiss Chowdhury's petition at the threshold were not fatal. .The defect flagged by the High Court concerned a Form 25 affidavit filed by Choudhury in support of his allegations that Mallah had committed corrupt practices. The original affidavit in the High Court’s record appeared to have been affirmed before a commissioner of affidavits. However, the copy served on Mallah did not carry any endorsement showing such affirmation.The top court today held that this omission did not justify dismissing the entire election petition."Obviously, the defect under Section 83 does not entail peremptory dismissal under Section 86 of the RoP Act,” the Supreme Court said..Therefore, it directed the High Court to verify whether the original affidavit contained the required attestation. If it did, the High Court was directed to consider the petition on merits, including by examining the allegations of corrupt practices.If the required attestation was absent, the Court said Choudhury should not be permitted to pursue the allegations of corrupt practices. However, the High Court must still examine other independent grounds, if any, raised in the petition, the Supreme Court added. “Suffice it to request the High Court to verify and if due attestation of the affirmation on oath is available, proceed with the matter on merits and if not available, not to permit the allegation of corrupt practices to be urged and proceed with the consideration on the merits of the other grounds, if any are pleaded,” the Court said..Mallah had defeated Choudhury by 18,360 votes, a margin of around 1.6 per cent.Choudhury subsequently filed an election petition alleging that Mallah had committed several “corrupt practices” during the campaign and on polling day, including widespread rigging, booth capturing, voter intimidation and bribery.He further claimed that several complaints regarding these alleged irregularities were made to election officials and the Election Commission of India (ECI), but no action was taken.Choudhury also questioned the integrity of the counting process. According to him, the ECI’s voter-turnout data showed that 11,36,538 votes had been polled. The figure increased to 11,43,796 after postal ballots were included.However, he claimed that 11,47,607 votes were eventually counted, resulting in an unexplained difference of 3,811 votes.In April 2025, the Gauhati High Court dismissed Choudhury’s petition at the threshold after identifying certain defects in the copy served on Mallah. It did not examine the allegations against the BJP leader on merits.Choudhury challenged this decision before the Supreme Court..Before the Supreme Court, the dispute centred on three defects alleged in the copy of the election petition served on Mallah.The first concerned the manner in which the pages were authenticated. Pages 1 to 84 carried the endorsement “attested to be true copy”, while pages 85 to 185 were marked “certified to be true copy."The High Court had held that the latter did not meet the requirement under Section 81(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.The Supreme Court disagreed. It observed that the provision does not prescribe any particular form of attestation and that both endorsements conveyed the same meaning.“The different rubber stamps employed convey the same meaning,” the Court said.The Court also rejected Mallah’s claim that four pages were missing from the copy served on him. It agreed with the High Court that this particular objection was an afterthought, as Mallah had not raised it during his earlier appearances in the case.The Court proceeded to allow Chowdhury's appeal in the matter and directed the High Court to reconsider the case. .Senior Advocate Harin Pravinkant Raval appeared for Choudhury.Advocate Wajeeh Shafiq appeared for Mallah..[Read Judgment]