AAP’s Shergill moves court after bar on contesting polls

Ropar/Chandigarh, May 1

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has barred AAP candidate from Anandpur Sahib Narinder Singh Shergill from contesting any election due to non-filing of details related to the expenditure incurred by him during the 2017 Assembly elections, which he had contested from Mohali.

Though the decision was taken by the ECI a few months ago, Shergill had filed an appeal before the commission, seeking revocation of the ban. The Deputy Election Commissioner, after giving a hearing to Shergill on April 25, rejected the appeal.
Since today was the day for scrutiny of the nomination papers, Shergill moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the ECI decision.

Acting on the plea, the court today directed the ECI and another respondent to provisionally scrutinise his nomination papers. Making it clear that the process would be subject to the outcome of his petition, the Division Bench of Justice Daya Chaudhary and Justice Sudhir Mittal also issued notice of motion to the ECI and the other respondent, while fixing May 2 as the next date of hearing in the matter.
Appearing before the Bench, Shergill’s counsel Akshay Bhan and Amandeep Singh Talwar submitted that the petitioner “had furnished accounts to the District Election Officer, which were duly scrutinised and the officer had even agreed with the amount shown by the candidate against all items of expenditure, as required”.

Bhan added that the petitioner then submitted his papers for the Anandpur Sahib constituency on April 29. It was to be taken up for scrutiny the next day and the petitioner appeared through his representative. But an oral intimation was sent that the “representation” filed by him had been dismissed on April 29. He further added that the order of rejection was, however, handed over to him this morning.

69 nominations rejected

Chandigarh: The Election Commission on Tuesday rejected the nomination papers of 69 candidates for the May 19 Lok Sabha elections, excluding the Anandpur Sahib and Ludhiana constituencies from where reports are yet to reach the head office here. The Election Commission said 321 candidates were left in the fray (excluding Ludhiana, Anandpur Sahib).