The Delhi High Court on Monday (19 October) imposed Rs.50,000 cost on AAP legislator Surender Singh for delay in filing response on an election petition of BJP leader Karan Singh Tanwar alleging that he furnished false information about his educational qualification in a poll affidavit.
Joint Registrar Ashutosh Kumar imposed the cost after Surender Singh’s reply was not found on record, but he however filed his response in the petition. The registrar had earlier granted a last opportunity to him.
Surender Singh, the Delhi Cantonment legislator from the Aam Aadmi Party, had denied the allegations and told the court that the allegation was “frivolous, vague and misconceived”.
Tanwar, in his petition, said Surender Singh “misrepresented himself to be BA in 2012 from Sikkim University… which amounts to corrupt practice within the meaning of the Representation of the People Act”.
He had said a Right to Information (RTI) reply from Sikkim University said it did not have any record of a student named Surender Singh, and sought the court’s directions to declare Surender Singh’s election “void”.
Surender Singh had said that he completed his graduation from the Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management (EIILM) University in Sikkim, but due to an inadvertent typographical mistake, the name of the university was shown incorrectly.
