GUWAHATI: The Manipur High Court on Thursday declared the election of BJP MLA, Okram Henry, who is also a minister, as null and void for filing incorrect and incomplete information in his affidavit.
A single-judge bench of Justice MV Muralidaran declared that the petitioner, Yumkham Erabot Singh, is duly elected as a member of 15-Wangkhei Assembly constituency.
Contesting as a Congress candidate, Henry had polled 16,753 votes as against 12,417 by Singh of the BJP. Later, Henry had defected to the BJP and was appointed as a minister.
The petitioner highlighted that Henry had furnished incorrect educational qualifications and also did not give full details of a criminal case and a drug case against him in the affidavit.
According to the 2012 election affidavit, his highest educational qualification is BA from the Punjab University but he cited it as Class XII from the Manipur Public School in the affidavit of 2017.
According to the petitioner, there was a criminal case pending against Henry before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Imphal West, over non-payment of money to a company. In order to discharge liability partly of Rs 10,29,47,449 to the complainant company as agreed upon, Henry had issued a cheque of Rs 10 lakh but it was dishonoured by the bank citing "insufficient funds". Later, the company filed a case against him before the CJM court.
"...At column 5(ii) of the Affidavit dated 13-02-2017 submitted by Respondent No.1 (Henry) to the Returning Officer of 15-Wangkhei A.C. along with his nomination paper, the Respondent No.1 is bound to provide details of cases which is/are pending against him in which cognizance has been taken by the court. The respondent no. 1, at column 5(ii) of the Affidavit had marked it as "NIL". The Respondent No.1 deliberately concealed the pendency of the Cril. (C) Case No.17 of 2017 before the Court of Learned Chief Judicial Magistrate/Imphal West," the court said.
A special trial case is also pending before the court of Special Judge, ND&PS against Henry whereby he was charged with illegally transporting contraband drugs.
The court said, "The Respondent No 1 had filled up the information about the said Special Trial (CBI) in the affidavit at column no. (5) (i) which provides, 'The following case(s) is/are pending against me in which charges have been framed by the court for an offence punishable with imprisonment for two years or more' without furnishing the case number of the said Special Trial and also filled up in column 5(i)(d) as charge has not been framed."
"The nomination paper of the Respondent No. 1 was improperly accepted by the Returning Officer as it is an admitted fact that the Respondent No. 1 failed to disclose the name of his spouse and dependents, details of criminal cases pending against him and his educational qualification. As such, election of the Respondent No. 1 is liable to be declared as null and void..." the court further said.
Meanwhile, following the court's ruling, Singh reportedly met Speaker Yumnam Khemchand. Henry is likely to move the Supreme Court.