AAP's Raghav Chadha withdraws plea against BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri

AAP leader Raghav Chadha on Wednesday withdrew from the high court his plea challenging the decision of returning officer to accept the nomination papers of BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri, who won the Lok Sabha polls from South Delhi and was granted liberty to file an election petition.

The petition came up for hearing before Justice A J Bhambhani who allowed the submission of Mr Chadha's counsel to withdraw the petition with a liberty to file an election petition.

"The petition is dismissed as withdrawn," the judge said.

Mr. Chadha had claimed in his plea that the returning officer (RO) overlooked "glaring discrepancies in Bidhuri's nomination" and it was accepted without application of mind on the grounds that they do not have any power to reject a nomination once an affidavit is filed, regardless of any concealment therein.

Read: AAP South Delhi Candidate Raghav Chadha Accuses BJP Rival Ramesh Bidhuri Of Voter Fraud, Claims Disguised BJP Workers Were Voting Multiple Times

Mr. Bidhuri and Mr Chadha had contested from the South Delhi constituency. Mr Bidhuri won by over 3.6 lakh votes.

Advocate R Arunadhri Iyer, representing Mr Chadha, told the court that his instruction was to withdraw the petition and that the petitioner be granted liberty to file an election petition.

The AAP leader, in his plea, had said, "The respondent no 2 (Bidhuri) had willfully and intentionally concealed the factum of registration of an FIR against him in Police Station... Muzaffarpur, Bihar, under sections 504, 506, 153 and 153(a) of the IPC."

The plea had sought direction to call for the records and quash the returning officer's April 24 order.

It had also sought direction to the RO to scrutinise the nomination of Mr Bidhuri in accordance with various directions of the Supreme Court.

The RO's decision is "arbitrary, illegal, unsustainable and ought to be quashed", the AAP leader had said.

"The impugned order failed to appreciate that every citizen in India has an unimpeachable and indefeasible fundamental right to information about the candidate they are called upon to vote for, which ought to not be rendered nugatory by an abdication of duty at the time of scrutiny," the plea had added.