'Political opinions or...': Supreme Court quashes plea challenging validity of Maharashtra Assembly polls

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition, challenging the validity of Maharashtra Assembly elections held in 2024 on the ground that 76 lakh votes were cast after 6 pm till the end of polling.

A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh declined to entertain a petition filed by Chetan Chandrakant Ahire against the Bombay High Court's judgment.

The High Court had earlier dismissed the petition on June 25, 2025.

Ahire, a voter from Vikhroli constituency, claimed 75 lakh bogus voters cast their votes after closing of polls on 6 pm on the voting day in Assembly elections held on November 20, 2024.

He challenged the entire election of the Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly elections, the results of which were declared on November 24, 2024.

Dismissing the plea, the High Court had noted farcical claims were made on the purity of the process of the elections of the State Assembly, and more particularly in the context of the electronic voting machines. It also found the approach of the petitioner was extremely casual.

"We are also quite astonished as to how a writ petition can be filed on the basis of a single newspaper article purporting to canvass a theory of discrepancies in the ‘cast vote’ and ‘poll votes’," the HC had said.

Except such limited material, there is no other material whatsoever, much less of any authenticity, to the effect that there was any malpractice, fraud or complaint of any nature in regard to the voting at the closing hours of the poll i.e. at about 6 p.m., not by the voters who were not in queue, it pointed out.

"We are of the clear opinion that merely on political opinions or on unsubstantiated newspaper reports, a petition under Article 226 cannot at all be maintained," the HC's division bench had said.