Courts shouldn't rush to invalidate elections: SC

New Delhi, Aug 18 (PTI) The Supreme Court has said courts should not rush to invalidate elections by adopting a "highly pedantic" approach just because a returned candidate didn't disclose certain information about assets, unless it influences the poll's outcome.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh, therefore, dismissed an appeal against an October 2024 order of the Telangana High Court which rejected an election petition related to the 2023 legislative assembly polls in Telangana.

The top court noted the issue in the election petition was whether non-disclosure of income as shown in income tax return for four financial years of the last five financial years in the Form 26 affidavit by the returned candidate would amount to a corrupt practice.

"In the light of the legal position exposited, on examination of the facts in the peculiar background obtaining in the case, we hold that the non-disclosure of income in the income tax return for four financial years by respondent 1 (returned candidate), is not a defect of substantial character," the bench said on August 14.

It noted the defect of non-disclosure was not of a substantial nature and, as a result, the returned candidate Kova Laxmi was held to have not indulged in a corrupt practice.

The order said whether or not the non-disclosure of assets was of a substantial character, courts must determine it based on specific facts of each case in line with a previous verdict.

"Merely because a returned candidate has not disclosed certain information related to the assets, courts should not rush to invalidate the election by adopting a highly pedantic and fastidious approach, unless it is shown that such concealment or non-disclosure was of such magnitude and substantial nature that it could have influenced the election result," it said.

The bench said in the case at hand, it was not demonstrated that such concealment or non-disclosure of certain information related to assets was of a substantial nature, materially affecting the result of the election of returned candidate.

Referring to a previous verdict of the apex court, the bench said it observed a case of non-disclosure of assets, amounted to a corrupt practice.

"But the non-disclosure of income as per income tax return in the present case, as discussed above, is not of a substantial nature to be considered a corrupt practice," the bench said.

"The true test," the bench said, "would be whether the non-disclosure of information about assets in any case is of consequential or inconsequential import, finding of which will be the basis for declaring the election valid or void as the case may be".

It said judicial intervention in election disputes concerning disclosure of information was prompted by the quest for "sanitising the electoral process" by eliminating polluting elements by making candidates' criminal antecedents public.

The verdict pointed out the disclosure requirement as far as assets and educational qualification was concerned, should not be unreasonably stretched to invalidate an otherwise validly declared election over minor technical non-compliances of non-substantial character and nullify people's mandate. PTI ABA ABA AMK AMK