The Delhi high court on Friday dismissed a petition challenging the candidature of UPA's presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee accusing him of abusing his office as finance minister and securing "pecuniary favour" in the form of votes from various political parties in the upcoming Presidential election.
The petition, filed by an advocate, had sought registration of a case against the ex-finance minister under the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly misusing his official position by approaching various MPs or MLAs for securing their votes for his candidature in the Presidential election to be held on July 19.
A vacation bench of justices V K Jain and Pratibha Rani, however, "dismissed the petition as withdrawn" and said that asking for vote does not amount to asking for pecuniary advantage.
"Obtaining or asking for vote does not amount to pecuniary advantage. Show us that asking for vote amounts to asking for valuable thing.
"It does not amount to criminal offence," the bench said.
Petitioner advocate M L Sharma argued that a person's vote is a valuable thing and if a man assures something in favour of vote, it comes under the category of pecuniary advantage.
The court, however, rejected Sharma's arguments and said that the nominations for the election were filed on Thursday only and before that Mukherjee was not a candidate.
"Petitioner in person seeks liberty to withdraw it. The petition is dismissed as withdrawn," the bench said.
Sharma had also sought direction for the appointment of a judicial committee to prove alleged misconduct of Mukherjee for securing support of various MLAs/ MPs for his presidential election while being a public servant.
