SC to hear on Oct 15 Ahmed Patel's petition against plea challenging his RS election

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would hear on October 15 a plea of senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel seeking stay on further proceedings in the Gujarat High Court regarding his 2017 election to the Rajya Sabha which has been challenged by rival BJP candidate Balwantsinh Rajput.

The matter came up for hearing before a bench of justices N V Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari and the counsel representing Rajput told the court that recording of evidence in the matter before high court was "almost over".

"We will hear the matter," the bench said.

Patel's counsel told the apex court that recording of evidence in the matter was over and high court has listed the case for further proceeding in this week itself.

Rajput's counsel argued that ongoing proceedings before the high court should not be stayed and the top court had earlier also said that the proceedings would go on.

"Instead of staying the matter, this court can say that order (of high court) will be subject to the outcome of the petition pending here," the lawyer said.

The bench, which said it would hear the matter on October 15, asked both the parties to request the high court to defer the case pending there till then.

"Nothing will happen till October 15," the bench said.

Patel has challenged the order of the high court by which it had dismissed his plea questioning the maintainability of Rajput's election petition.

Earlier, the apex court had declined to interfere with the October 26, 2018 order of the high court which had said that Rajput's allegations required a trial.

Patel has filed three appeals against the orders of high court which were tagged together by the apex court on July 22.

The apex court on January 3 had asked Patel to face trial on Rajput's election petition challenging the Election Commission's decision to invalidate the votes of the two rebel MLAs.

Had these votes been counted, he would have defeated Patel, the BJP leader had contended.

Patel was declared the winner after Election Commission invalidated the votes of rebel Congress MLAs Bholabhai Gohel and Raghavjee Patel, bringing down the number of votes needed for victory to 44 from 45.

In the election petition before the high court, Rajput has alleged that Patel had taken Congress MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru before the election which amounted to "bribing the voters".

Patel had first moved the Supreme Court against the April 20, 2018 order of high court, contending that the decision of the poll panel cannot be challenged by an election petition.

The apex court on September 26 last year had asked the high court to decide afresh Patel's plea challenging the maintainability of a petition filed by Rajput.