New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice on a plea filed by former Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti challenging the Delhi High Court’s refusal to suspend his conviction in the 1998 Rural Development Bank fraud case but refused to stay the conviction, leaving his disqualification as an MLA in force for now.
A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta sought responses from the prosecution and the Zila Sahkari Krishi Gramin Vikas Bank, through its General Manager, and posted the matter for hearing after four weeks.
With the apex court declining to stay the conviction at this stage, Bharti’s disqualification as a member of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly will continue.
Bharti has challenged the July 10 judgment of the Delhi High Court, which had refused to suspend his conviction awarded by a Special MP/MLA court in New Delhi. In its judgment, the Delhi High Court held that suspension of conviction is an extraordinary power that should be exercised only in “exceptional circumstances” and found no apparent infirmity in the trial court’s findings.
Rejecting Bharti’s plea that the impending Datia Assembly by-election constituted an irreversible consequence warranting suspension of conviction, a single-judge Bench of Justice Manoj Jain observed: “The answer has to be in the negative.”
The Delhi High Court held that such hardship was not unique to Bharti but flowed from the statutory scheme governing disqualification of elected representatives.
It had further said that merely because a person is an MLA or MP whose electoral prospects are affected cannot be a ground to stay the conviction, adding that “in the absence of a serious infirmity or a fundamental flaw… the judgment of conviction is not liable to be stayed/suspended.”
On a prima facie assessment of the record, the Delhi High Court had found no “palpable or manifest error” in the trial court’s judgment.
It observed that the material on record indicated that the fixed deposit tenure was allegedly altered in stages from three years to 10 years and eventually to 15 years, enabling a family trust linked to Bharti to continue receiving interest at 13.5 per cent for years beyond the original maturity period.
The Special MP/MLA court had convicted Bharti and co-accused Raghuvir Sharan Prajapati under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including Sections 120B, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 409, in connection with alleged financial irregularities involving a fixed deposit at the District Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank in Datia in 1998.
According to the prosecution, Bharti and others conspired to manipulate the fixed deposit and continued drawing higher interest even after its maturity.
Bharti was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 1 lakh. Though his sentence was suspended and he was granted bail, the conviction remained in force, resulting in his immediate disqualification under Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, read with Article 191(1)(e) of the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s 2013 judgment in the Lily Thomas case.
His conviction led to the termination of his membership of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly and the Datia Assembly seat being declared vacant by the Assembly Secretariat, following which the Election Commission of India notified the by-election.
(IANS)
