Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: The election of a candidate to the state Assembly cannot be invalidated because of irregularities in the disclosure of their educational qualifications, the Calcutta High Court has ruled.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya said that an “uneducated electorate has the right to elect one of them as their representative in the State Legislative Assembly”.
“Seen from such perspective, it cannot be said that even if there was some irregularity in the declaration regarding [the candidate’s] educational qualification…the same would be regarded as ‘improper acceptance of any nomination’ to vitiate his election itself,” the Bench said.
The High Court made the comments while upholding the election of Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Swapan Majumder to the Bangaon Dakshin Assembly constituency in the 2021 West Bengal polls.
Majumder’s election had been challenged by a man named Gopal Seth on the basis of documents obtained under the Right to Information Act. He had alleged that Majumder faked his educational qualifications submitted during the Assembly polls in 2021.
The judge said that Section 36(4) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, provides that “at the time of scrutiny of nomination, the Returning Officer shall not reject any nomination paper on the ground of any defect which is not of substantial character”.
“Educational qualification, not being an essential criterion for getting elected, would not be a defect of a substantial character,” the judge added.
