Supreme Court sets aside Karnataka HC order dismissing election petition against JD(S) leader Prajwal Revanna

The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside an order of the Karnataka High Court that dismissed a petition challenging the election of sitting Janata Dal (Secular) Member of Parliament Prajwal Revanna [G Devarajegowda v. Prajwal Revanna @ Prajwal R and ors]..A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh remitted the matter to the High Court, to be heard along with another petition filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader A Manju..In December last year, the same Bench of the apex court had set aside an order of the High Court which had dismissed the other election petition filed by Manju..Before the Court, Senior Advocate Pramila Nesargi, appearing for the appellant Devarajegowda, argued that the election petition was dismissed by the High Court on “procedural irregularities”.She argued that the High Court did not consider the fact that by dismissing the election petition, it was running a risk of having a representative in Parliament who has not got the maximum number of valid votes..While passing its order, the Bench said that it cannot take an expansive view of the pleadings while considering the defects in election petitions. The limited question before the Court was whether the petition could be knocked out at the threshold. It held,"In view of the aforesaid reasoning as well as our judgment in Civil Appeal No.1774/2020 titled “A. Manju v. Prajwal Revanna @ Prajwal R & Ors.” dated 13th December, 2021 relating to the same elected candidate/respondent, we set aside the impugned judgment and remit the matter back to be tried along with other petition as aforesaid leaving all defences open to the respondent expeditiously."It was made clear that all the defences will be available to Revanna during the hearing of the matter before the Karnataka High Court..Along with Nesargi, advocates Balaji Srinivasan, Mohammed Shahrukh, Garima Jain, Pallavi Sengupta, Aakriti Priya, Lakshmi Rao and Prateek Yadav represented Devarajegowda.Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Advocates K Parameshwar, S Sregurupriya and Prasad Hegde appeared for Revanna..Revanna, the grandson of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, was accused of not disclosing details about his assets in his election affidavit. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections for the Hassan constituency, Revanna was declared the winner with 6,76,606 votes while Manju was the runner-up, with 5,35,282 votes.Manju had challenged the results before the High Court, which dismissed the same as "not maintainable” since it was filed without an affidavit and thus incomplete in terms of the provisions of the Conduct of Election Rules of 1961.A similar petition was filed by Devarajegowda, which also came to be dismissed by the High Court..In December, while dealing with the dismissal of Manju's petition, the Court had held that non-submission of an affidavit in Form 25, as prescribed under Rule 94A of Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, would not lead to the dismissal of the election petition, especially in the light of the fact that there was a verifying affidavit in support of the election petition..Supreme Court sets aside Karnataka HC dismissal of election petition by BJP's A Manju against JD(S) Prajwal Revanna.[Read order]