Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, however, gave no relief to Joshi and said if Chouhan loses his appeal in the Supreme Court against his verdict, the seat will be declared vacant.
The High Court stayed the operation of the order for a month on Chouhan's plea to enable him to file appeal in the Supreme Court.
Justice Maheshwari said that if Chouhan won in the apex court, he would continue to be the MLA but if he lost there, he would have to return all the benefits, which he drew or enjoyed during his entire stint as MLA till the order of the court.
Joshi, (62215 votes) had lost the 2008 Assembly election to his opponent Kalyan Singh Chouhan (62216 votes) by 1 vote from Nathdwara constituency of Raj Samand district.
Joshi had then filed an election petition questioning the result in the High Court on January 16, 2009, on two counts that Kalpana Kanwar, wife of Kalyan Singh, had cast her vote at two polling stations and that some of the votes as mentioned in the petition were improperly received.
The court ordered these two votes cast by Kalpana Kanwar to be decoded and excluded from the valid votes.
With his, the court also directed the tendered ballot papers cast by the genuine voters to be opened and counted.
The court also held the petitioner Joshi entitled to the cost of the petition quantified at Rs 51,000 payable by the respondent Chouhan.
