Bigamy slur may get Congress Faridabad MP Avtar Singh Bhadana disqualified

Devinder,through his counsel Sanjiv Bansal,Thursday filed a PIL alleging that the MP has two wives and he concealed the fact while filing nominations for contesting the Lok Sabha elections.

The petitioner alleged that the MP’s second wife has mentioned Avtar Singh Bhadana as her husband in a ration card,a bank account and while purchasing a scooter. The address mentioned in all the three documents is the same where the MP resides.

Producing these documents as vital piece of evidence advocate Sanjiv Bansal averred that the fact of bigamy has been suppressed by the MP. He added that the MP was “abusing his position”.

Avtar Singh Bhadana contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 from the Faridabad constituency as Congress candidate. “At the time of filing his nomination papers,Avtar Singh submitted an affidavit before the returning officer on April 17,2009 but concealed the fact of his second marriage,” reads the PIL. “He again concealed the information in a similar affidavit submitted on April 22,2004. Both the affidavits are available on the website of the Election Commission of India. In both the affidavits,Bhadana gave details of only one spouse,Mamta Bhadana.”

Alleging that Bhadana “deliberately concealed certain material facts in his affidavit with malafide intentions and to mislead the public at large”,the petitioner submitted that the MP was liable to be prosecuted for bigamy.

To buttress his point,the petitioner further alleged that Bhadana had earlier also remained in news for all the wrong reasons.

A complaint submitted by the Central Empowered Committee to Haryana,concerning illegal mining alleges that Bhadana tried to trespass shamlat land in derogation of the Supreme Court’s directions. It has also been alleged that a TV journalist was thrashed at the behest of the MP after the journalist had tried to capture images of the MP trespassing into the disputed land.

The petitioner,thus,requested that the MP be disqualified. The respondents have been given two months time to respond.