Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday appeared before a court in the poll affidavit case on Monday, after four exemptions from personal attendance by the court.
Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) P S Ingle granted bail to Fadnavis on an ordinal bond of Rs 15,000.
The trial is, in fact, a re-trial of the case dating back to 2014, which stood truncated in 2018 following an order of the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court giving relief to Fadnavis.
The petitioner in the original case, Satish Uke, a lawyer himself, had moved the Supreme Court (SC) against the Bombay High Court order. On October 1, 2019, the Supreme Court had quashed the high court order, directing a re-trial.
Accordingly, the trial resumed last year but Fadnavis kept asking for an exemption from personal appearance for one reason or the other and the court of CJM did grant him relief, although grudgingly.
The petitioner has claimed that Fadnavis had erred by not mentioning two criminal cases against him dating back to 1996 and 1998 in his 2014 Maharashtra Assembly election affidavit and hence should have stood disqualified for standing for election.
As reported earlier, Fadnavis has filed a review petition against the earlier SC order directing re-trial in the case. The SC, on Tuesday, completed the hearing and has reserved its judgment.
Talking to mediapersons after coming out of the court, Fadnavis said, “I didn’t intentionally hide any case in my affidavit. It was my lawyer’s decision. And all cases against me had arisen out of my struggle for people and there’s is no personal case against me. And the two cases in the instant petition have long been settled. I have won both the last elections by over 50,000 votes”.
Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
