Thursday, July 21 2005 15:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: An interpolation made by a Returning Officer (RO) to reject the nomination papers of a BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) candidate was taken serious note of by the Supreme Court, which quashed the election of a Congress candidate to the Uttaranchal Assembly in 2002.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice R C Lahoti, Justice G P Mathur and Justice P K Balasubramanyan allowed the appeal filed by the BJP candidate Anil Baluni and quashed the election of Surendra Singh Negi.

The manner in which, the Returning Officer to the Kotdwar constituency made the interpolation makes interesting reading as was detailed by the Court in its 24-page judgement recently.

Acording to the BJP candidate, the RO marked valid in Hindi (vaidh) on his nomination papers in front of him. However, after he and his election agent left the room of the RO, the letter "Aa" in Hindi was added before "vaidh" to make the nomination papers "Aavaidh" (invalid).

The allegations of the BJP candidate on interpolation were substantiated by the Directorate of Forensic Science, which confirmed in its report that "Aa" was written some time after the word "vaidh" was scribbled on the nomination paper.

Taking this into account, the Bench held that the nomination paper of the BJP candidate was improperly rejected and set aside the election of Negi as MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) from Kotdwar.