Supreme Court dismisses petition by Tej Bahadur Yadav against rejection of nomination

The Supreme Court today dismissed a petition filed by former BSF soldier Tej Bahadur Yadav challenging the rejection of his nomination to contest the 2019 parliamentary elections from Varanasi..A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna heard Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi (along with Advocate Amit Sharma) and Advocate Prashant Bhushan before dismissing the case..Bhushan submitted Yadav was not calling into question the election and hence Article 329 would not have application in this case..“Their argument is that Article 329 bars courts from questioning elections. I am not questioning the election. My submission is that I am being illegally prevented from contesting the election.“.The Court, however, dismissed the claim..Bhushan said that this could eventually result in the election from Varanasi being challenged in an election petition, something which the Supreme Court could have avoided..Tej Bahadur Yadav was fielded by the Samajwadi Party as its candidate from the Varanasi constituency, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting from..However, his nomination papers were reportedly rejected by the returning officer, citing his failure to submit a certificate that he was not sacked from the Army for either corruption or disloyalty. Yadav challenged this rejection, contending that such a decision was taken to facilitate an easy victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi..To buttress his case, Yadav had submitted that the Returning Officer failed to note that he had produced his dismissal letter while filing his nomination papers. The dismissal letter, Yadav highlights, clearly shows that he had been dismissed for alleged indiscipline and not for corruption or disloyalty to the State. Therefore, there was no requirement for any additional certification to prove that he had not been dismissed of corruption of disloyalty, stated his petition..The former BSF jawan had caused a stir in 2017 for criticising the Army’s treatment of its own. He had uploaded a video on his Facebook account showing the poor quality of food served to the jawans at the border. This video had soon gone viral, with severe criticism coming in from various quarters regarding the BSF’s functioning. Consequently, an inquiry was ordered against Yadav, and his family had allegedly lost touch with him soon after..His wife had then approached the High Court seeking a writ of Habeas Corpus, alleging that Yadav had gone missing. Yadav was later dismissed from service in April 2017..The Election Commission was represented by Advocate Amit Sharma, who briefed Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi..[Read Order].Bar & Bench is available on WhatsApp. For real-time updates on stories, click here to subscribe to our WhatsApp.