Delhi HC bench recuses from MP BJP leader Narottam Mishra disqualification case

The poll panel in its June 23rd order held Narottam Mishra guilty of filing wrong accounts of election expense relating to articles and advertorials in the media during the 2008 assembly polls.

A bench of Delhi High Court on Thursday recused from hearing a plea by Madhya Pradesh BJP leader Narottam Mishra challenging the Election Commission (EC) order which disqualified him from contesting elections for three years on charges of paid news.

The Delhi HC is hearing the pending appeal by Narottam Mishra on the request of the Supreme Court which kept in abeyance the EC order of disqualifying Mishra for three years.

The apex court had said that the matter involves substantial questions of law regarding the interpretation of the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and requested the Delhi High Court to hear Mishra's pending appeal expeditiously, preferably within two weeks.

The poll panel in its June 23rd order held Narottam Mishra guilty of filing wrong accounts of election expense relating to articles and advertorials in the media during the 2008 assembly polls.

It had used some strong words against paid news, calling it a "cancerous menace" that is assuming "alarming proportions" in the electoral landscape.

Mishra even couldn't vote in the July 17 presidential election after the Delhi High Court refused to grant him any interim relief on July 16.

The EC had served notice to Mishra on January 15, 2013, based on the complaint filed by Rajendra Bharti of the Congress party. He had alleged that Mishra, a close aide of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, had not filed certain details in his election expenditure in the 2008 polls.

(With agency inputs)