SC relief for Congress MLA Mohammed Moquim in election annulment case

New Delhi/Cuttack: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Orissa High Court order, nullifying the 2019 election of Congress MLA Mohammed Moquim from Cuttack-Barabati Assembly constituency in Odisha.

The bench of Justices Surya Kant and K V Viswanathan agreed to the contention of senior advocate Dr S Muralidhar, who appeared for Moquim, that the HC’s judgement was very high on technicality and “unusually long”, LiveLaw reported.

“It was difficult to dig out facts or anything,” Justice Kant said. The apex court also served notice to BJD leader Debashish Samantaray, who had challenged Moquim’s election after losing the polls by 3827 votes in 2019, alleging that he had suppressed criminal cases pending against him while filing his poll affidavit.

On March 4, a single judge bench of Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo observed that Moquim had not submitted his nomination papers in accordance with Section 33 of the Representation of Peoples’ Act, 1951. He also had not made proper and full declaration about the 13 criminal cases pending against him in the affidavit filed with the nomination papers.

“Therefore, his nomination is liable for rejection,” Justice Sahoo said in the order, while adding, “The returning officer should have rejected the nomination at the time of scrutiny of the nomination papers. But the returning officer illegally and improperly accepted the nomination papers of Moquim.”