The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed ex-BSF trooper Tej Bahadur Yadav plea challenging rejection of his nomination papers by the Election Commission (EC) to contest Lok Sabha polls from Varanasi.

At today’s hearing, the counsel of EC, Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi told the bench comprising of CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta, Sanjiv Khanna that it has looked into Yadav’s compliant and found out that his nomination was dismissed on grounds of indiscipline and not corrupt practices.

Yadav’s counsel Advocate Prashant Bhushan while objecting to Dwivedi’s submissions referred to Article 329 and said that Yadav has been unfairly prevented from contesting the elections.

Dismissing the petition, the bench said: “We find no ground to entertain this petition under Article 32.”

Yadav was fielded by the Samajwadi Party (SP) but his nomination was cancelled by Election Commission (EC) on the ground that he was unable to give satisfactory reply to EC notice.

Earlier, Yadav was served notice seeking his reply as why he had rendered diverse justifications for quitting his job in the two sets of nomination papers tendered — one as a Samajwadi Party candidate and another an Independent.

Yadav had rubbished the EC claims by saying that he had replied to the EC notice clarifying the dissimilarity in reasons. He had squarely blamed the Centre for his rejection after which had told the media that he will take up the matter with the Supreme Court.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the sitting MP from Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency.

—India Legal Bureau

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