8 corporators go scot-free
■ Leaders didn’t disclose criminal cases in affidavit
Eight city corporators, six of them from the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti, followed by the AIMIM and the BJP, who gave false affidavits during corporation elections in 2016, have gone scot free, thanks to the reluctance of the GHMC Commissioner and the Election Commission to hold them to account.
The eight are accused of not disclosing serious criminal cases against them for crimes such as cheating, forgery and damage to public property. The information was brought to light by a Right to Information query. There were originally 11 such cases but in one of the cases it was found that a case was registered after the candidate had filed the affidavit.
In another case, the crime number has been erroneously printed, and in third, cases were booked against the corporator’s husband.
Eight city corporators, six of them from the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), followed by the AIMIM and BJP, who gave false affidavits during corporation elections in 2016, have gone scot free, thanks to the reluctance of the GHMC Commissioner and the Election Commission to hold them to account.
The Election Commission asked the GHMC commissioner to file a complaint before the concerned police station or court under Section 609 of the GHMC Act, for which punishment is one year imprisonment, and under Section 177 of the Indian Penal Code. But the GHMC commissioner, who was also the returning officer for the elections, passed the buck, and, quoting court judgements and ECI directives, said that he need not file court cases and any aggrieved party can do so.
This has led to a situation where no cases have been filed against the corporators even though replies to Right to Information (RTI) queries addressed to police stations have nailed the corporators.
In eight cases it was clearly found that the corporators hadn’t mentioned criminal cases booked against them or — in some cases — chargesheets filed against them. Six TRS corporators, one BJP and one MIM corporator are on the list.
The Election Commission said that “it is not known if the court has taken cognisance of the cases as on the date of affidavit.”
Senior advocate Ch Mallesh Rao explains that court “taking cognizance” means “taking judicial notice by a court of law on a cause or matter presented before it so as to decide whether there is any basis for initiating further proceedings. Once an FIR (first information report) is issued, and the police produce the same in the court, and the court accepts it, then it means the court has taken cognizance based on which police investigate further. This is done under section 190 of the CrPC.”
He said that “obviously, in all these cases that are years and months old, the court has taken cognisance.”
The Telangana State Election Commission, responding to a complaint filed by the secretary of the Forum for Good Governance (FGG), P. Padmanabha Reddy, in its reply marked to the GHMC commissioner, said: “The contesting candidate has to mention the details of cases which have been taken into cognizance by the court as on the date of filing of affidavit. If it is believed that the contesting candidate has failed to furnish information or filed wrong affidavit, it is open to proceed for further action under section 177 IPC by filing petition before competent court against the contesting candidate for filing wrong affidavit. Nevertheless, the commission and election authority, GHMC, are advised to consider the facts and arrange to file suitable complaint before the concerned police officer or court.” The GHMC Commissioner in his reply to the State Election Commission, said: “GHMC standing counsel has opined that GHMC need not file any criminal case and aggrieved party can directly approach the court in matters of suppression of information or filing of false affidavits in election seeking action against the elected representatives.”
Mr Padmanabha Reddy of the FGG explained that the FGG had filed RTI applications with police stations and thus collected the information. When they compared this information with the contents of the affidavits filed by the corporators, they found that some candidates had not shown cases pending against them.
“Usually, the defeated candidate files a case against the winning candidate if he committed any irregularity. But in this case, it is a matter of filing a false affidavit for which the election authority has to take cognisance, more so when it is done by about eight winning candidates,” said Mr Reddy.
He added, “when serious irregularities were brought to its notice by the Forum for Good Governance, the Election Commission failed to take immediate steps, except to send a routine letter to the election authority (the GHMC Commissioner), who washed his hands of the matter by advising the Forum for Good Governance to file the complaints in court itself. In this way about eight corporators, who can be removed on the basis of filing false affidavits, are continuing in their posts thanks to the Election Commission and the GHMC election authority.”