New Delhi, April 1
Patidar leader Hardik Patel—who intends to contest the Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate from Jamnagar—on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging Gujarat High Court’s recent order refusing to stay his conviction in a 2015 rioting case.
Patel’s petition is likely to be mentioned for urgent hearing on Tuesday as the last date for filing of nominations in Gujarat is April 4. Polling for 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state is to be held on April 23.
A Sessions Court at Visnagar in Mehsana had sentenced Hardik Patel to two-year imprisonment on July 25, 2018 for rioting and arson in Visnagar town in 2015 during the Patidar agitation for reservation in education and jobs. The Gujarat High Court had in August last year suspended the sentence but not the conviction.
Twenty-five-year-old Patel— who joined Congress on March 12—had already started preparations to contest from Jamnagar. But the March 29 order the Gujarat High Court refusing to stay his conviction has virtually ruled out his debut in electoral politics.
According to India’s election law, the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and Supreme Court ruling, a convict facing a jail term of two years or more cannot contest elections. But if the conviction is stayed or suspended, the ineligibility is removed.
While courts generally don’t pass such orders, there have been exceptions. For instance, in January 2007, the Supreme Court had stayed the conviction of cricketer-turned politician Navjot Singh Sidhu in a road rage death case, paving his way for contesting the Amritsar Lok Sabha by-election necessitated by his resignation. In another case, the Supreme Court in November last year stayed the conviction of Rajasthan Congress leader Shivkant Nandwana, who wanted to contest assembly elections in the state.
“It is not possible to hold, as a matter of rule, or, to lay down, that in order to prevent any person who has committed an offence from entering Parliament or the Legislative Assembly the order of conviction should not be suspended. The courts have to interpret the law as it stands and not on considerations which may be perceived to be morally more correct or ethical,” the top court had said in Sidhu’s case.
Patel’s counsel had submitted that if his conviction was not stayed, it will cause “irreparable damage” as he would not be able to contest Lok Sabha polls.
Contesting his claim, the Gujarat Government had told the High Court that there were 17 FIRs, including two sedition complaints, against Patel who habitually made inflammatory speeches.
While refusing to stay Patel’s conviction, the Gujarat High Court had noted that a conviction can be stayed only in rare and exceptional cases, and Patel’s case didn’t fall in that category.
