The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition accusing UPA presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee of “misusing” his office as finance minister for soliciting votes for him before resigning.
A bench of Justices Aftab Alam and H.L. Gokhale warned petitioner M.L. Sharma, an advocate, of serious action if he rakes up any identical issue again.
In fact Sharma has filed another PIL seeking to define the principle of “proportionate representation” as laid down in the Constitution for electing the President in the wake of political parties which had fought parliamentary and Assembly elections against each other, aligning to elect the President. This petition is likely to come up for hearing soon.
In the PIL, which came up for hearing on Friday Mr Sharma had alleged that by soliciting votes form different parties by Mr Mukherjee in the intervening period of declaring of his candidature and resigning from the Cabinet, he had “misused” his position as Union minister asking different political parties for the votes of their MPs and MLAs.
He alleged that soliciting of votes by a public servant using his position was an offence under the election laws as well as the Prevention of Corruption Act. However, the bench took serious exception to raking up of such issues in a PIL with Justice Alam heading it warning Mr Sharma that the court could not be used as “theatre for farcical play”.
The SC even had announced imposition of Rs 50,000 as cost on him but recalled the order after the petitioner pleaded that such an extreme punishment should not be meted to him.
“You are trying to destroy the system. This time we are sparing you. If you continue to file such petitions, don’t expect any indulgence from us,” warned Justice Alam putting a counter question as what was wrong in asking for votes by a candidate contesting the election.