Supreme Court orders removal of corrupt practice allegations from Assam election petition

This case concerns an appeal against a High Court order that rejected an Election Petition challenging the 2024 Lok Sabha election result in the Karimganj constituency, Assam. The core issue is whether the petition was validly dismissed due to defects in the attestation of the petition copies and the Form-25 affidavit.

The matter concerns the Appellant (Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury, the Election Petitioner) and the Respondents (Kripanath Mallah & Ors., the successful candidate). The judgment was delivered by Justice K. Vinod Chandran.

• The Court reversed the High Court's finding that the attestation of the Election Petition copies was improper, holding that the use of different rubber stamps ('attested to be true copy' vs 'certified to be true copy') conveyed the same meaning and satisfied Section 81(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
• The Court found that the copy of the Form-25 affidavit served on the respondent lacked any indication of notarization or attestation by a prescribed authority, distinguishing this case from T.M. Jacob v. C. Poulose and aligning it with Dr Shipra (Smt) v. Shanti Lal Khoiwal.
• The Court held that the defect in Form-25 does not warrant peremptory dismissal of the entire petition under Section 86, but rather requires striking off only the parts containing allegations of corrupt practices, while other independent grounds must be tried on merits.
• The Court declined to interfere with the High Court's finding that the contention regarding missing pages was an afterthought.

Written from the document by AI, and checked against it. The original below is authoritative.

The original document