A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on April 23 dismissed a writ petition filed by Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Avani Bansal and another person from Bengaluru seeking a directive to the district electoral officer to pass a reasoned order on their complaint alleging that Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala, has filed a false affidavit about his assets and income along with his nomination papers.
The Bench comprising Justice V.G. Arun and Justice S. Manu, while dismissing the petition, observed that “the question as to whether the returning officer should have passed a reasoned order cannot be decided at this point of time and no direction can be issued to him to communicate reasons for the decision on the complaint at this point of time.”
“The remedy of the petitioners, if aggrieved by the acceptance of the affidavit filed by one of the candidates, is to challenge the same in an election petition,” the court added.
In the petition, the Congress leader and Ranjith Thomas of Bengaluru alleged that Mr. Chandrasekhar had omitted to mention a significant number of assets in his asset declaration, including properties such as his house, luxury cars and private jets which he owned.
Besides, he had failed to declare the real book value of the companies as mandated by the Election Commission of India. The book value of the four holding companies shown in the affidavit is ₹6.38 crore, while it is ₹1,610.53 crore according to the filings made by these companies with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Therefore, the declaration of assets by the BJP candidate was inaccurate, the petition said.
The petitioners said they got a communication from the district electoral officer that their complaint had been forwarded to the Deputy Director of Income Tax (Investigation), Thiruvananthapuram, for necessary action. By deliberately delaying to take a call on their complaint, the electoral officer had caused substantial prejudice to the petitioners. Therefore, the petitioners pleaded that the returning officer be called upon to state the reasons as to why no decision had been taken.
