The Supreme Court dismissed a PIL looking to disqualify Nitish Kumar as an MLC. The grounds for the PIL was that he had not come clean on a murder case that was pending against him since the poll panel.
The bench led by CJI Dipak Misra, took into account the Chief Minister’s defence that he had disclosed the details of the pending case against him to the Election Commission in 2012. The case was dismissed on the basis of it having no merit. Dipak Misra was accompanied by AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud.
The bench said, “Election Rules say that he should declare it after the trial court takes cognisance of the case,” referring to Nitish Kumar. The trial though has been stayed by the Patna High Court. The CM’s counsel also said that there have been no illegalities with regard to the minister.
The PIL was filed by ML Sharma who alleged that the Bihar CM was accused of killing a Congress leader Sitaram Singh and injured four others before the Lok Sabha by-election from Barh in Bihar in 1991. The PIL was filed on the grounds that it was mandatory for members of the Legislative Council to disclose criminal records, and that Kumar hadn’t disclosed the case in his affidavits since 2004 except for the one in 2012.
The long-running case has still not come to a close, which is more curious than the fact of whether he disclosed it or not. Curiously in the 1993 judgement the CM of Bihar was declared innocent. But there have been outright challenges against this verdict. But he is not unlike many other politicians in the country who have a good run despite having pending cases against them. There’s nothing surprising or new about such a PIL and its dismissal, the case still remains open for now.