New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate M.L. Sharma, challenging Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s membership to the Bihar state legislative council for failing to disclose criminal record at the time of filing the affidavit for contesting elections.
A bench led by chief justice Dipak Misra dismissed the petition for being devoid of any merit.
Amit Sharma representing the Election Commission of India submitted before the court that Nitish Kumar was obliged to disclose any criminal record against him only after cognizance of an alleged offence is taken by a magistrate, and that he had made such disclosure in 2012 in the prescribed form.
The Election Commission also informed the court that no such disclosure was required to be made by Nitish Kumar post 2012, as he did not contest any election.
In July 2017, M.L. Sharma had filed the PIL seeking cancellation of Nitish Kumar’s membership to the state legislative council for allegedly concealing a pending criminal case against him. Sharma claimed that the Bihar chief minister did not disclose information on a pending criminal case while filing his nomination on more than one occasion since 2004, except for 2012.
The Election Commission had on an earlier occasion called the PIL “frivolous”, “based on incorrect facts” and “without any cogent evidence”.
An FIR was registered before a police station in Patna district against Nitish Kumar for charges of murder in November 1991. The cognizance of the offence took place in August 2008.
The Patna high court in April 2009 had stayed “further proceedings” in the case before the magistrate.