Supreme Court restores 2019 election of BJP's Dasanglu Pul to Arunachal Pradesh Assembly

The Supreme Court on Thursday restored the 2019 election of Arunachal Pradesh legislator Dasanglu Pul to the State Legislative Assembly from Hayuliang constituency [Dasanglu Pul vs Lupalum Kri]..A bench of Justices AS Bopanna and PS Narasimha set aside a Gauhati High Court order that had quashed her election..The top court had reserved its verdict in the matter on October 11.Pul is the widow of former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister (CM) Kalikho Pul, who had three wives. .The Gauhati High Court had in April this year, set aside her election for allegedly concealing information about six properties belonging to the late CM in her affidavit. That order came on an election petition filed by Congress leader Lupalum Kri who had lost to Dasanglu in 2019.Kri also claimed that Dasanglu had not mentioned in her election affidavit that she had held an office of profit as the chief of the Arunachal Pradesh Mineral Development and Trading Corporation Limited.Dasanglu contended that she was not the legal heir to her late husband's properties and that only his first wife was.The Supreme Court had earlier granted Dasanglu interim relief by way of a May 12 order, thereby allowing her to participate but not vote in legislative assembly proceedings. By this order, the top court had also said that no bye-election could be conducted to the seat in question.In its final order today, the apex court has restored Dasanglu's election and dismissed the election petition filed by Kri.It noted that the legal heir certificate had duly been issued in favour of the first wife. "Therefore,neither as on the date of the death of the spouse nor on the date of filing the nomination for the election at the first instance in the year 2016 or at the point when the nomination was filed on 22.03.2019, the property left behind by the deceased was claimed by the appellant", the bench stated..Supreme Court refuses to entertain PIL seeking CBI probe into death of former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister, Kalikho Pul .Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta with advocates Tatini Basu, Boboy Potsangbam, Gamso Billai, Biluso Tulang, Kumar Shashank, and Nitipriya Kar appeared for Dasanglu Pul.Senior Advocate Santosh Paul with advocates Arvind Gupta, Anil Kumar Sahu, Mohit Bidhuri, Suman Sharma, Sagnik Bose, and Vedansh Mishra represented Lupalum Kri..Former Arunachal CM Kalikho Pul’s suicide note ruffles feathers in Delhi’s legal circles.[Read judgment]