Setback for Ashok Chavan

In a major setback for former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, the Supreme Court on Monday asked the Election Commission to go ahead and probe charges that he indulged in promoting himself through ‘paid news’ during the 2009 assembly elections.

The apex court directed the EC to hold day to day hearings in the case relating to Chavan and decide on the complaint against him within 45 days. If the EC finds him guilty, Chavan — who has contested the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket from Nanded in Maharashtra and is expected to win — could be disqualified from parliament. The former chief minister had been accused by a political rival in 2009 of having carried a paid editorial in the supplement of a leading Marathi newspaper during the assembly elections. The rival, Madhav Kinhalkar, an independent candidate from the Bhokar constituency in Nanded, had filed a complaint with the EC seeking action against Chavan for the irregularity.

Chavan had not disclosed the expenses on the paid news and claimed that the newspaper had carried the article praising him voluntarily. This was one of the most notorious instances of ‘paid news’ being passed off by politicians as independent news.

When the EC launched proceedings against him, Chavan approached the Delhi High Court seeking a stay. The court, however, refused his plea. Chavan moved the Supreme Court in November 2011, claiming that the EC did not have the authority to disqualify a candidate for misrepresenting the amount of money spent on the campaign.

The union law ministry also tried to back Chavan by filing an affidavit claiming that the EC could disqualify a candidate only if he or she failed to file the account expenses.

On Monday, however, the apex court ruled that the EC was empowered to probe irregularities including paid news in the accounts filed by a candidate. Besides Chavan, two other politicians — including Madhu Koda, the former CM of Jharkhand — had also petitioned the Supreme Court seeking a quashing of the EC’s probes into paid news.

Son of former CM Shankarrao Chavan, Ashok was sacked as chief minister by the Congress high command in 2010 after allegations surfaced he was involved in the Adarsh housing scam. Chavan, as revenue minister, was alleged to have given concessions to the promoters of the illegal building in Mumbai’s posh Cuffe Parade area. In return, he was given a couple of flats in the high-rise. Chavan had been indicted by a judicial commission of enquiry, which had found a nexus between his granting clearances to the promoters of Adarsh and some of his close relatives being allotted flats.

nithin@khaleejtimes.com

• India