IMPHAL, February 29: In a landmark judgement passed today, the High Court of Manipur has disqualified Moirang MLA Mairembam Prithiviraj Singh who is also the present parliamentary secretary of Youth Affairs and Sports, Tourism from being a member of the Manipur Legislative Assembly.
The verdict, passed just 30 minutes passed noon today by a single bench of Justice N Kotishwar, declared Prithiviraj disqualified from being the elected legislator of 27-Moirang Assembly Constituency in Bishnupur district.
The judgement was passed regarding the case Election Petition Case no 1 of 2012 which was filed by Prithiviraj’s lone opponent in the last election Pukhrem Sharatchandra Singh.
The petitioner was represented by senior advocate Naorem Kumarjit Singh assisted by advocate P Tamphamani Singh, while the respondent M Prithiviraj Singh was represented by senior advocate V Giri and H Ishwarlal.
The case was filed charging Pritihiviraj of wrongly filing his highest educational qualification as MBA passed out from Mysore University in his election affidavit for the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly Election, 2012.
Prithiviraj was elected on a Congress ticket in the State general election held on February 28, 2012.
During the scrutiny of the said election, Sharatchandra Singh had claimed that Prithiviraj’s election affidavit was against Article 173 of the Constitution of India which calls for filing of proper affidavit and that he has also failed to abide by the norms prescribed by Section 36 (2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 for submission of proper affidavit.
Sharatchandra had raise objection citing that Prithiviraj had submitted a wrong affidavit; however, the RO had accepted the nomination paper.
The wrong educational qualification was filled in paragraph 9 of the affidavit submitted on January 6, 2012. In the election, Prithiviraj received 14,521 votes to emerge winner against the 13,363 votes received by Sharatchandra of Nationalist Congress Party.
The case was filed on April 19, 2012 by Sharatchandra; however, after the appeal was kept adjourned for long, he filed Civil Appeal No 8063 of 2015 (Special Leave petition (c) No 15813 of 2015) before the Supreme Court, which made its ruling on October 1, 2015 directing the High Court of Manipur to depose off the case by February 2016.
Meanwhile, the High Court of Manipur has also turned down an appeal of Pukhrem Sharatchandra to declare him the MLA of 27-Moirang Assembly Constituency following Prithiviraj’s disqualification.