BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday reserved the order on the petition filed by K N Shanth Kumar questioning the rejection of his nomination papers for the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) president election.
Justice Suraj Govindaraj reserved the verdict after hearing the arguments of Shanth Kumar, KSCA, the electoral officer and former cricket players B K Venkatesh Prasad and Kalpana Venkatachar, who are also candidates in the election.
Before reserving the order, the video footage of the scrutiny proceedings undertaken by the electoral officer on November 24 was played in the open court to ascertain Shanth Kumar’s claim that the arrears of Rs 200 due from the Sports Club, which has an institution membership with the KSCA and is represented by him, was already paid when the nomination papers were taken up for scrutiny, and details of the payment was informed to the electoral officer.
The KSCA’s counsel submitted that it had not prepared the list of members who have not paid the membership fee, and hence the members could not be informed about arrears of payment of membership fee as per the bylaw before the election process commenced. The bylaw has provision for not allowing a member to cast a vote in the election and contest elections in case of any arrears, he submitted.
Meanwhile, the counsel of the electoral officer submitted that the KSCA record did not contain information about payment of arrears made on behalf of the Sports Club represented by Shanth Kumar when the scrutiny of nomination papers for the president was taken up. Therefore, the nomination papers of the candidates for the post of president were deferred for want of the necessary records from the KSCA on the candidates, and hence, the scrutiny of nomination papers for other posts was taken up.