Hyderabad: In a huge relief to Gadwal BRS legislator B. Krishna Mohan Reddy, the Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Telangana High Court's orders which had set aside his election in 2018 and declared D.K. Aruna, then a Congress candidate, as the winner.
A division bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Dipankar Datta issued notice to Aruna, now BJP vice-president, directing her to file her contentions within two weeks. The state government had issued a gazette notification declaring her the winner following a communiqué from the Election Commission.
The High Court on August 24 declared Reddy’s election void and imposed a fine of '2.5 lakh on him for filing a false affidavit. It had declared Aruna elected with retrospective effect from December 2018, besides directing Reddy to pay her '50,000 towards litigation costs. Challenging the same, Krishna Mohan Reddy had approached the apex court.
The top court questioned asked Krishna Mohan Reddy’s counsel why they failed to submit their arguments before the High Court. Counsel Sundaram said the petitioner had not received any notice from the High Court with regard to Aruna’s election petition.
He further submitted that Aruna’s counsel had misled the court by submitting forged documents to make the court believe that Reddy had accepted the court notices. Counsel also said that Reddy had erred in filing the election affidavit by not mentioning his savings account details. The case adjourned to four weeks.
