The petition that was heard regularly for the past one week concluded with advocate Shekhar Naphde for the respondent, Arun Mehta, contending that until there was conclusive proof that his client's nomination form that was signed by 10 Congress MLAs when it was blank, caused a "material difference to the poll outcome", the elections of his client as well as that of the ten other candidates who were elected, could not be set aside.

Gidwani, challenged the candidature and election of Arun Mehta, an Independent candidate to the Council in June, 1998 on the ground that Mehta's name was subscribed to by ten Congress MLAs, who did not know that they were backing him, since they had admittedly signed a blank nomination form that eventually was used for Mehta'snomination. The Congress MLAs, who were later sent show cause notices by the AICC high command, claimed that they were unaware that the paper would be used by Mehta for his candidature.

Gidwani claimed that since the 10 MLAs did not know who their candidate was, it was logical that Mehta was not backed by the 10 MLAs. His nomination paper had thus no value and could not be accepted. Since the elections to the Council are based on preferential ballot, Gidwani's counsel Mukesh Vashi contended that the court should set aside the elections of all the candidates to the Council.

However, Naphde read out Supreme Court judgements and perused the rule book to show that Gidwani had not complained about the nomination form when the form was presented to the returning officer. Neither was any complaint of this kind made when the election results were declared on June 18, 1998.