SC to take up sacked BSF constable plea on rejection of election petition against Modi after 2 weeks

The Supreme Court on Friday decided to take up after two weeks a plea by Tej Bahadur, a sacked BSF constable, against the Allahabad High Court's order that had dismissed his election petition against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tej Bahadur's nomination papers as the Samajwadi Party candidate in Varanasi constituency in 2019 Lok Sabha polls were rejected.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy adjourned the matter on a letter issued by the petitioner, requesting to put the matter for consideration after four weeks. The court, however, preferred to defer it by two weeks only.

Senior advocates Harish Salve and Satyapal Jain appeared for Modi and others.

Tej Bahadur challenged the validity of the High Court's judgement of December 6, 2019. The High Court has dismissed his election petition as having no locus and further said that he was neither a registered voter nor the resident of Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency.

In a special leave petition, he contended that his nomination papers were rejected by the returning officer under "illegitimate pressure" from the BJP.

"The officer acted in an arbitrary manner and the High Court also committed a grave error by ignoring the fact when any person filed nomination in a constituency and his candidature has been rejected, then he has locus to file election petition," his plea contended.

The petitioner sought a direction to set aside the rejection of his nomination papers on May 1, 2019 and action against the returning officer for misuse of his official powers.

The petitioner was sacked from the BSF after a video, in which he showed the alleged poor quality of foods served to jawans, went viral on social media networking sites.