The Gujarat high court on Thursday upheld a lower court order rejecting a petition filed by an Aam Aadmi Party worker against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for alleged poll code breach in 2014, saying that the magistrate had do so in an appropriate manner.
Justice J B Pardiwala while upholding the lower court order rejected admission of the petition, saying, "I am not impressed with your submission that the magistrate did not follow proper procedure while dismissing your petition."
He said, "As per my interpretation, the magistrate has power to reject and it was done in an appropriate manner, so I hereby reject it (petition)."
The petition was filed by AAP worker Nishant Verma against the verdict of the local court, which in May this year had dismissed his plea seeking legal action against Modi for allegedly breaching the poll code last year.
On April 30, last year, when the voting was underway on 26 Lok Sabha seats of Gujarat, Modi, the then prime ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party, had addressed a press conference immediately after he voted in a school at Ranip area of Ahmedabad and displayed his party's symbol lotus, according to the petition.
Modi also took a selfie from his mobile phone while holding a replica of the party's symbol -- lotus, it said. Verma had filed the plea before the high court against the order of Chief Judicial Magistrate of Ahmedabad Rural Court S R Sinh dismissing his plea by holding that the probe of the city crime branch, which had filed closure report giving a clean chit to Modi, was just and proper.
During arguments before the high court, K R Koshti, advocate for the petitioner, submitted that the police had investigated the matter in a manner as if it was under influence as the opponent (Modi) was then serving as the chief minister of the state.
Koshti said Modi was conscious that the entire media was there and his showing of party symbol would go as a message to the entire country. He contended that the investigating officer of the case neither informed the Election Commission -- which had directed filing of a first information report, nor the petitioner about the submission of a closure report giving a clean chit to Modi.
The high court had asked Koshti on why a private complaint was filed even when the Election Commission had directed the police to file an FIR in the case. Responding to this, Koshti said the police did not file a proper FIR in the poll code breach case.
Appearing for the state government, Advocate General Kamal Trivedi opposed the plea and said the petitioner had not once gone before the Investigating officer of the case.
Trivedi said during the proceeding in the lower court, there were 12 adjournments, but the petitioner did not produce any witness when the case was being heard there.
