Gandhinagar, April 20: The Gujarat High Court on Friday rejected Rajya Sabha (RS) Congress member Ahmed Patel's plea against the admission of BJP's Balwantsinh Rajput's petition challenging the Election Commission (EC)'s decision that resulted in Ahmed Patel's victory in the RS polls last year.
Justice Bela Trivedi dismissed the application by Patel who was represented by senior Congress leader and lawyer Kapil Sibal in the court.
Balwantsinh Rajput, a former Congress MLA, defected from the party to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) just ahead of the August 8 Rajya Sabha elections for three seats in the state and was fielded as a BJP nominee for one of the seats.
Rajput lost the election to Patel after the EC passed an order invalidating the votes of former Congress MLAs Raghavjee Patel and Bholabhai Gohel over flouting of poll norms. Going against the party's decision, the two Congress leaders had voted for Rajput instead of Patel. The votes were invalidated by the EC, thus paving the way for Patel's victory.
After the elections, Rajput had filed a petition in August 2017 questioning the Commission's invalidation of two votes by rebel Congress leaders following objections raised by the Congress.
He also accused Patel of indulging in corrupt practices by taking 44 Congress MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru and keeping them in captivity and spending lavishly on them.
May 4 has been fixed as the date for initiating the case proceedings in the court.
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New application filed in SC against Adani group over US indictment
New Delhi: A fresh application has been submitted to the Supreme Court of India, seeking the inclusion of key documents related to the recent US indictment of the Adani Group. Filed by advocate Vishal Tiwari, the petition aims to introduce two critical pieces of evidence into an ongoing case related to the Adani Group's financial practices.
The first document is a formal US court indictment accusing Gautam Adani, his relative Sagar Adani, and other company executives of orchestrating a massive bribery scheme to secure solar energy contracts worth billions of dollars in India. The indictment alleges that over $250 million in bribes were paid to Indian government officials to obtain these lucrative contracts.
The second document is a complaint from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accuses the Adani Group of securities fraud. The SEC alleges that Adani executives misled investors to raise funds for these solar projects, despite knowing that part of the capital was linked to corrupt activities.
This development follows the US Attorney's Office's recent charges against the Adani executives, who are accused of masterminding a bribery scheme to secure power supply contracts with state-run utilities in India. The contracts were expected to yield up to $2 billion in profits over two decades.
These charges come amid an ongoing investigation by India's Securities and Exchange Board (SEBI) into the Adani Group, after allegations of stock manipulation and market irregularities surfaced, particularly following the release of the Hindenburg Report in early 2023. The new US legal documents could play a crucial role in strengthening the investigation into the Adani Group's business operations.
