Deccan Chronicle: Hyderabad: Friday, August 18, 2017.
Eight city
corporators, six of them from the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti, followed by
the AIMIM and the BJP, who gave false affidavits during corporation elections
in 2016, have gone scot free, thanks to the reluctance of the GHMC Commissioner
and the Election Commission to hold them to account.
The eight are
accused of not disclosing serious criminal cases against them for crimes such
as cheating, forgery and damage to public property. The information was brought
to light by a Right to Information query. There were originally 11 such cases
but in one of the cases it was found that a case was registered after the
candidate had filed the affidavit.
In another
case, the crime number has been erroneously printed, and in third, cases were
booked against the corporator’s husband.
City poll
affidavit: 6 go scot-free
The Election
Commission asked the GHMC commissioner to file a complaint before the concerned
police station or court under Section 609 of the GHMC Act, for which punishment
is one year imprisonment, and under Section 177 of the Indian Penal Code. But
the GHMC commissioner, who was also the returning officer for the elections,
passed the buck, and, quoting court judgements and ECI directives, said that he
need not file court cases and any aggrieved party can do so.
This has led
to a situation where no cases have been filed against the corporators even
though replies to Right to Information (RTI) queries addressed to police
stations have nailed the corporators.
In eight
cases it was clearly found that the corporators hadn’t mentioned criminal cases
booked against them or in some cases chargesheets filed against them. Six TRS
corporators, one BJP and one MIM corporator are on the list.
The Election
Commission said that “it is not known if the court has taken cognisance of the
cases as on the date of affidavit.”
Senior
advocate Ch Mallesh Rao explains that court “taking cognizance” means “taking
judicial notice by a court of law on a cause or matter presented before it so
as to decide whether there is any basis for initiating further proceedings.
Once an FIR (first information report) is issued, and the police produce the
same in the court, and the court accepts it, then it means the court has taken
cognizance based on which police investigate further. This is done under
section 190 of the CrPC.”
He said that
“obviously, in all these cases that are years and months old, the court has
taken cognisance.”
The Telangana
State Election Commission, responding to a complaint filed by the secretary of
the Forum for Good Governance (FGG), P. Padmanabha Reddy, in its reply marked
to the GHMC commissioner, said: “The contesting candidate has to mention the
details of cases which have been taken into cognizance by the court as on the
date of filing of affidavit. If it is believed that the contesting candidate
has failed to furnish information or filed wrong affidavit, it is open to
proceed for further action under section 177 IPC by filing petition before
competent court against the contesting candidate for filing wrong affidavit.
Nevertheless, the commission and election authority, GHMC, are advised to
consider the facts and arrange to file suitable complaint before the concerned
police officer or court.”
The GHMC
Commissioner in his reply to the State Election Commission, said: “GHMC
standing counsel has opined that GHMC need not file any criminal case and
aggrieved party can directly approach the court in matters of suppression of
information or filing of false affidavits in election seeking action against
the elected representatives.”
Mr Padmanabha
Reddy of the FGG explained that the FGG had filed RTI applications with police
stations and thus collected the information. When they compared this
information with the contents of the affidavits filed by the corporators, they
found that some candidates had not shown cases pending against them.
“Usually, the
defeated candidate files a case against the winning candidate if he committed
any irregularity. But in this case, it is a matter of filing a false affidavit
for which the election authority has to take cognisance, more so when it is
done by about eight winning candidates,” said Mr Reddy.
He added,
“when serious irregularities were brought to its notice by the Forum for Good
Governance, the Election Commission failed to take immediate steps, except to
send a routine letter to the election authority (the GHMC Commissioner), who
washed his hands of the matter by advising the Forum for Good Governance to
file the complaints in court itself. In this way about eight corporators, who
can be removed on the basis of filing false affidavits, are continuing in their
posts thanks to the Election Commission and the GHMC election authority.”
Tainted
corporators
- Mustafa Ali, Sha Ali Banda, AIMIM: Causing hurt by dangerous weapon and Public Properties Damage, Crime No. 308/2012 of Charminar PS
- G. Sanjay Goud, Yousufguda, TRS: Cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy case, Crime No. 799/2015 of Jubilee Hills PS
- D. Venkatesh Goud, Allwyn Colony, TRS: Causing hurt, illegal confinement and criminal intimidation, Crime No. 340/2016 of Jagadgirigutta PS
- N. Jagadeeshwar Goud, Malkajgiri, TRS: Causing hurt for dangerous weapon, criminal intimidation, Crime Number 204/2015 of Malkajgiri PS
- V. Radha Reddy, RK Puram, BJP: Three cases of wrongful restraint, false statement in election, Crime No. 77/2016 of Saroornagar PS, Crime No. 42/2016 of Chaitanyapuri PS and Crime No. 65/2016 of Chaitanyapuri PS
- M. Mamatha, Gunfoundry, TRS: Public nuisance and disobedience of public servant orders, Crime No. 29/2016 of Sultanbazar PS
- A. Chaitanya Kanna, Kachiguda, TRS: Disobedience of orders by public servant, Crime No. 20/2016 of Kahciguda PS
- A. Rupa, Monda Market, TRS: Illegal payments in connection with the election and disobedience of public servant orders, Crime No. 26/2016 of Marredpally PS
- Legal Provisions relating to filing false affidavit
- Section 609 of GHMC Act: If a person makes a false declaration regarding any nomination of a candidate for election or any return on election