Supreme Court: The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the election of Karikho, who was elected as an independent MLA from Teju assembly seat of Arunachal Pradesh in 2019. A bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Sanjay Kumar set aside the July 17, 2023 decision of the Itanagar bench of the Gauhati High Court. The Supreme Court had declared Karikho’s election from Teju seat of Lohit district invalid.
Relief from Supreme Court
The Supreme Court took note of Karikho’s appeal against the High Court decision and said that contesting candidates are not required to disclose every movable asset owned by them unless they are very valuable or reflect a luxurious lifestyle. . Earlier, the Supreme Court’s decision was taken by the then Congress candidate N. The case came on an election petition filed by Tayang, challenging the declaration of 2019 assembly election results.
High Court had rejected
The High Court had said that Karikho had not submitted his nomination papers as per Section 33 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and, therefore, his nomination papers were liable to be rejected under Section 36 (2) (b). Tayang had alleged that Karikho had made a false declaration by not disclosing in his nomination paper that he owned a government residence named ‘MLA Cottage No. 1’ located in Sector E, Itanagar.
It was alleged that Karikho had not collected the ‘No Objection Certificate’ from the concerned department for the rent, electricity charges, water charges and telephone charges of the government accommodation. The assembly election took place on April 11, 2019, and the results came on May 27, in which Karikho was declared the winner as an independent candidate.
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