The Bombay High Court today dismissed NCP leaders Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh’s plea seeking permission to cast their votes in the Maharashtra Legislative Council’s elections. Polling for the Maharashtra Legislative Council is scheduled to be held on June 20. After today’s court order, both leaders will no longer be able to vote.
Bombay High Court dismisses the pleas of Maharashtra Minister Nawab Mallik and former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh for permission to cast their votes on June 20th for the MLC polls. Both of them will not be allowed to cast their votes.
— ANI (@ANI) June 17, 2022
(File photos) pic.twitter.com/nxDzeuskDL
Deshmukh and Malik had moved the high court seeking to vote in the upcoming Legislative Council elections on June 20. Elections for 10 seats of the legislative council will be held on June 20. Deshmukh and Malik had filed a petition seeking a grant of a day’s bail on the bond so that they could vote in the elections.
In the argument on behalf of the NCP leaders, it was said that the two are yet to be convicted of the charges against them and therefore they cannot be deprived of the right to vote. It was also claimed that the court had the privilege of allowing the two to vote. In response to this, the Enforcement Directorate argued that according to law, prisoners don’t have the right to vote.
Earlier too, the two jailed leaders were not allowed to vote in the Rajya Sabha elections. The two leaders had approached the Bombay High Court after the petition was turned down by the Special PMLA Court. But the court refused to hear their petition.
The Enforcement Directorate had arrested Malik in a money laundering case that links with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Anil Deshmukh was accused of a 100 crore bribe when he was home minister of the Maharashtra government. The allegation was levelled against him by the then Mumbai Police Commissioner. Anil Deshmukh had resigned from his post when the Bombay High Court approved a CBI probe into the case. Both leaders are currently in jail.
