HC allows Tikshan Sood’s plea against summoning

Source: tribuneindia.com

Just over a year after former minister Tikshan Sood was summoned by a Hoshiarpur court to face trial on a complaint alleging filing of a false affidavit under the provisions of the Representation of Peoples Act and the Indian Penal Code, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today allowed his petition for quashing the orders and the complaint.

In his petition placed before Justice Anil Kshetarpal of the High Court, Sood through counsel KS Dadwal had sought quashing of complaint dated March 23, 2018, under Sections 171-G of the IPC dealing with a false statement in connection with an election and 125-A of the Representation of Peoples Act on penalty for filing false affidavit.Directions were also sought for quashing all subsequent proceedings, including summoning order dated June 5, 2018, passed by Hoshiarpur CJM and order dated January 31, whereby his revision petition was dismissed.

The criminal complaint was filed by Satbir Singh on the allegations that an affidavit dated January 15, 2017, was furnished by the petitioner at the time of filing his nomination for election to the Punjab Assembly.

He mentioned that his land at Patti village in Hoshiarpur was worth Rs 1.6 lakh, but the same property was disclosed worth Rs 60 lakh in an earlier affidavit filed during the 2012 Assembly elections.

Dadwal contended there was no intention to file a false affidavit. It was only an inadvertent typographical mistake. The land value was written as Rs 1.6 lakh, instead of Rs 160 lakh.