Apex court dismisses Sangma’s plea against Pranab

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed former LS speaker P A Sangma's petition challenging senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee's election as the President.

Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, who led the 3:2 majority ruling, held that Sangma's petition was not maintainable for regular hearing. However, the two dissenting judges — Justices J Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi — held that the petition deserves regular hearing.

While Justice Chelameswar said he will give the reasons for dissenting with majority order next week, Justice Gogoi said since it was alleged that Mukherjee was holding the office-of-profit as the chairman of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) when he filed the nomination papers for the presidential election, Sangma petition was fit for a regular hearing.

Sangma has contended that Mukherjee was holding offices of profit as chairman ISI, Kolkata and as also the leader of the Congress Party in Lok Sabha when he had entered the presidential race.

Earlier, the court had taken on record a short affidavit from Mukherjee, who said the grounds for challenging his election was "ex-facie misconceived."

Attorney General GE Vahanvati, who assisted the court, had opposed Sangma's plea, saying "no pecuniary benefits was attached to the post of chairman of ISI. Moreover, the post must be such where the office-bearers can be influenced by the appointing authority".

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