Bengaluru, Jun 17: The High Court of Karnataka on Friday expressed displeasure over Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna not being present during the hearing of an election petition (EP) challenging his election. The court witnessed the chief examination of the EP filed by one G Devarajegowda, a voter from the constituency.

The matter came up for hearing before Justice K Natarajan.

Justice Natarajan who is on the roster in the Dharwad Bench was in Bengaluru today to hear the petition. The EP challenged Revanna's election on grounds that he had not secured the maximum number of valid votes. The petition alleged bribery and non-disclosure of assets.

Noticing that the first respondent Revanna himself was not present at the hearing, the court observed, "You can't pay advocates to attend the case and stay away."

During the examination, the petitioner-witness pointed out various instances wherein the assets declared by Revanna were allegedly wrong.

The second respondent in the case is A Manju, the defeated candidate in the same election.

His chief examination was also conducted by the petitioner's counsel and senior advocate Pramila Nesargi today.

During the examination, the example of the "Chennambika Conventional Hall" was cited, which is said to be worth at least Rs five crore but declared as worth only Rs 14 lakh. Another example was a bank balance in an account declared as Rs five lakh but allegedly having a deposit of Rs 48 lakh.

It was alleged that there were several benami' assets of the MP and income tax fraud.

The Court adjourned the hearing to June 24.

This EP was earlier dismissed by the High Court on technical grounds that the annexures were not attested. The Supreme Court, however, set aside that order and sent the petition back for hearing.

Another EP was filed against Prajwal Revanna by A Manju, the defeated candidate in the Lok Sabha election held in 2019.

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New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi BJP Saturday accused AAP leaders of circulating "edited" videos to tarnish the image of their own party MP Swati Maliwal, who has accused an aide of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of assaulting her.

It is regrettable that "edited" videos are being circulated on social media groups since Friday in an attempt to "defame" Maliwal who is a member of the Aam Aadmi Party, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva claimed.

Earlier in the day, the Delhi Police arrested Kejriwal's aide Bibhav Kumar who has been accused by Maliwal of assaulting her at the CM's residence on Monday.

A couple of videos from the chief minister's residence from the day of the incident have surfaced on social media, one showed Maliwal having an argument with security personnel, while the other showed her walking out of the CM's residence in the Civil Lines.

"Now that the entire Aam Aadmi Party is tarnishing the image of Swati Maliwal, it's time Kejriwal comes forward and speaks on the matter," Sachdeva said.

The AAP has accused Maliwal of lying and becoming a part of the BJP conspiracy to frame Kejriwal in a fake case in the midst of elections.

Sachdeva said now that Kejriwal's aide has been arrested by police, many "dirty pages" of AAP's politics will become public.

If the AAP is trying to implicate Maliwal by circulating "edited" videos, it would be better for the Delhi Police to immediately take possession of the complete CCTV footage of the chief minister's residence, Sachdeva said.

He charged that Maliwal is not the first woman leader of the AAP that the party has has defamed.

Earlier, they also raised questions about Kiran Bedi, Shazia Ilmi and Richa Pandey who have all left the AAP, Sachdeva added.