Cuttack: Orissa High Court on Tuesday set aside the election of Congress MLA Yogesh Kumar Singh from the Sundargarh Assembly seat, which is a reserved one.
Delivering the judgment that had been reserved since December 20 last year, the single-judge bench of Justice B.K. Nayak also declared that a casual vacancy had occurred in the Odisha Legislative Assembly with the disqualification of Singh as MLA.
The decision is a jolt to the Congress, which had won 16 seats in the 147-member Assembly. After the death of its Bijepur MLA Subal Sahu and disqualification of Singh, the party's strength would be reduced to 14.
Singh had won the Sundargarh seat, reserved for scheduled tribe, in the 2014 elections defeating BJD's Kusum Tete by around 12,500 votes.
The BJP's Sahadev Xaxa, who also lost from the seat, had filed the election petition, challenging the election of Singh accusing him of using false caste certificate to contest from the seat reserved for scheduled tribe candidates.
A voter of the constituency, Ajay Patel, too, had challenged the election, raising the same allegation.
"Our basic contention was false caste certificate and false affidavit on his property details was filed along with his nomination papers. Acting on it, Justice B.K. Nayak declared Yogesh Singh's election as void," Xaxa's counsel Gopal Agarwal said.
"But, the basis of disqualification of the MLA will be known only after a copy of the judgment is available," Agarwal said.
The petitioner said that Singh had concealed the details of his spouse and dependants in the affidavit accompanying his nomination papers, as a result of which he had suppressed his immovable properties at Sargipalli.
The petitioner accused Singh of getting false scheduled tribe certificate showing his caste as "Bhuyan" solely on the basis of land patta.
He had submitted false caste certificate, along with his nomination papers, when he did not belong to the scheduled tribe.
Reacting to the verdict, Singh said: "I will move the Supreme Court against the high court order."
