Plea against PM in selfie case rejected

The Gujarat High Court on Thursday maintained the earlier order by a lower court that rejected the plea against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for an alleged violation of election code during the 2014 parliamentary election.

Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat and the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate then, had apparently taken his selfie with the BJP’s ‘lotus’ symbol. Justice J B Pardiwala, upholding the lower court order, rejected the petition, stating that the lower court magistrate had followed proper procedure and had powers to dismiss the petition.

The petition was filed by an AAP worker Nishant Verma against the verdict of the local court, which had in May this year dismissed his plea seeking legal action against Modi for allegedly breaching the poll code.

The plea stated that on April 30 last year, Modi had addressed media immediately after casting his vote at a local school of Ahmedabad and took a selfie while holding a replica of BJP’s election symbol.

Verma filed the plea before the high court against the order of Chief Judicial Magistrate of Ahmedabad Rural who dismissed his appeal and upheld the closure report giving a clean chit to Modi by the city crime branch as just and proper.