SC to hear plea seeking cancellation of Nitish's Legislative Council membership

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a plea seeking the cancellation of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s state Legislative Council membership for allegedly concealing a pending criminal case against him.

A bench of Justices, Justice Dipak Misra, Amitava Roy and AM Khanwilkar said it will consider the matter after petitioner advocate ML Sharma sought an urgent hearing of his plea.

The bench also stated that it will fix a date for hearing the plea.

In the petition against Nitish Kumar, Sharma alleged that the Bihar CM is involved in a murder case in which he was accused of killing a local Congress leader Sitaram Singh, and injuring four others ahead of Lok Sabha by-election to the Barh constituency in 1991.

The plea, additionally, requested the court to order the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to register an FIR against Kumar.

“Respondent number 2 (Election Commission), despite knowing facts about his (Kumar’s) criminal case, did not cancel his membership of the house and respondent (Kumar) still enjoys constitutional office till date,” the petitioner was quoted as saying.

The petitioner has sought the cancellation of Kumar’s membership to Bihar Legislative Council as per the Election Commission’s 2002 order stating it is mandatory for candidates to disclose criminal cases against them in their affidavits.

Sharma claimed that Nitish did not disclose the criminal case that was pending against him in his affidavits since 2004, except for 2012.