Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will face trial for allegedly failing to declare two criminal cases on his election affidavit in 2014, the Supreme Court said today, cancelling a High Court order clearing him.
This will not impact the Chief Minister in the October 21 Maharashtra election.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, reviving the complaint against Fadnavis, said the case would be heard by a magistrate’s court.
Fadnavis had the knowledge but did not mention the cases in his poll affidavit, the Supreme Court said.
The punishment for concealing information or giving false information on one’s election papers is six months jail or fine or both.
Two cases of alleged cheating and forgery were filed against Fadnavis in 1996 and 1998, but charges were not framed.
A petition challenging Fadnavis’s clean chit argued that a candidate was legally required to disclose details of all the cases in which charges have been framed or the trial court had taken note.
