A single bench of the High Court of Manipur on Monday dismissed an election petition filed against former Manipur Forest minister, Th Shyamkumar who had already been disqualified from being a member of the Manipur Legislative Assembly.
The former Forest minister was facing the case after another former minister Nimaichand Luwang filed an election petition before the high court against him. In the petition, Luwang alleged that Shyamkumar had filed a false affidavit in the 2017 assembly election to the state Assembly by not disclosing a pending appeal against him in the Delhi High Court.
Mention may be made here that Shyamkumar was disqualified from being a member of the state legislative Assembly by the Speaker of the state Assembly under the 10th Scheduled of Indian Constitution, popularly known as Anti-defection Law in March 2020.
His disqualification was related to his switching to BJP soon after he was elected on a Congress ticket in the 2017 Assembly election. However, a by-election to fill the vacant seat of Andro Assembly constituency of Imphal East district, where Shyamkumar had represented, remained held-up owing to the pending election petition.
With the dismissal of the petition on Monday, the deck for holding the pending by-election clear, said the former Forest minister, at a press conference held on Monday. He also said that he would approach the Election Commission of India (ECI) to hold the by-election of Andro constituency at the earliest.
“If the ECI receives the official information regarding the disposal of the case, the by-election may be held along with elections to the Assam state Assembly,” Shyamkumar said.
The former Forest minister, while welcoming the judgment of the High Court of Manipur, said that the verdict of the court has proved beyond doubt that he had not filed the affidavit with false information.
NNN
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