On Thursday, the High Court of Gujarat rejected the petition filed against Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India. It was alleged in the petition that he had violated the election rules by taking a selfie keeping the party symbol on his hand. He also convened a press conference on the day of election in the 2014 general elections. The bench consisted of Justice J B Pardiwala who upheld the decision of lower court. The lower court had already dismissed the petition filed by Nishant Varma who was the member of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who asked the Court to include charges against the Prime Minister who was the former Chief Minister of Gujarat when the rules were alleged to have violated by him.
The High Court also stated that the decision reached by the lower court which declined to order inquiry and include more charges was correct. But the High Court also said that the order issued by the lower court as per Section 210 of Cr P C seeking police report was incorrect. The order issued by the court was not correct because the petitioner failed to file complaint in the police station. At the same time, there was a complaint given to the crime branch by the Election Commission and inquiry is being conducted on this complaint.
A complaint was filed by Varma on 30th April 2014 to the Election Commission on the day when Modi had taken selfie and conducted a press conference. Thereafter Varma filed petition before the lower court for addition of charges in FIR as per Section 130 of Representation of Peoples Act and Section 114 of Indian Penal Code. An investigation was also conducted by city crime branch and reported clean chit to the PM that was accepted by metropolitan court. But the court refused to add charges as requested by the petitioner. The hon’ble High Court upheld the report of the crime branch and also praised the crime branch for its investigation.
Jewel Panicker