MP’s Narottam Mishra files over 2,500-page plea against EC ban
Madhya Pradesh minister Narottam Mishra, who was disqualified by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for three years from contesting polls for allegedly filing wrong accounts of election expenditure in 2008 assembly elections, on Tuesday filed a petition at the Gwalior bench of the state high court for a stay on the EC order.
Talking to HT, Mishra said that the petition was filed by his lawyer MPS Raghuvanshi to seek stay on the EC order as there was “no proof that he had paid money for the news”.
Mishra , who is also parliamentary affairs and public relations minister, alleged EC’s order was “anomalous and based on imagination and possibilities”.
MPS Raghuvanshi told HT that he filed over 2,500-page petition in the court to seek a stay.
“We have made a plea to the court that EC order is not based on any proof that Narottam Mishra gave money for the news. So we are urging the court that until the investigation into the matter is not completed, the court should stay the order”, he said.
The EC order came on Saturday. It stated that Mishra “was complicit in the publication of the impugned paid news as news items and has derived benefit from and taken advantage of the same, without reporting or acknowledging it, and thereby attempting to bypass the rigours of the law”. In the past, Mishra had moved the HC urging it to quash the investigation.