Delhi High Court dismissed AAP leader Somnath Bharti’s election petition challenging BJP’s Satish Upadhyay’s 2025 Malviya Nagar victory, citing a critical flaw. Justice Jasmeet Singh held the petition non-maintainable for non-joinder of a necessary party under the RPA, 1951.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court dismissed an election petition on Saturday filed by AAP leader and former Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti, which challenged the 2025 Assembly election victory of BJP candidate Satish Upadhyay in the Malviya Nagar constituency.
The court concluded that the petition had a critical legal flaw and was not maintainable.
Justice Jasmeet Singh ruled that Bharti failed to include a necessary party against whom allegations of corrupt practices were made, a requirement that mandates dismissal under the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
Bharti, who previously served as a three-time MLA for Malviya Nagar, ran as the Aam Aadmi Party candidate in the Delhi Assembly elections held on February 5, 2025.
The election results, announced on February 8, indicated that he received 37,433 votes, while Upadhyay won with 39,564 votes, a margin of 2,131 votes. Following this, Bharti sought the High Court’s intervention to declare the election null and void.
In his petition, Bharti accused Upadhyay of various corrupt practices under the ROPA, including voter inducement, manipulation of voter lists, failure to report election expenditures, and collusion with the Congress candidate Jitender Kumar Kochar.
A significant allegation was that Upadhyay allegedly financed Kochar’s campaign to split the votes against Bharti, which constituted bribery and undue influence under Section 123 of the Act.
Counsel representing Upadhyay raised a preliminary objection, arguing that since Bharti had made allegations of corrupt practices against Kochar, Section 82(b) of the ROPA required Kochar to be named as a respondent.
They asserted that failure to do so left the court no choice but to dismiss the petition under Section 86(1). They also contended that Bharti’s later request to either include Kochar or withdraw the allegations after the statutory 45-day period did not rectify the flaw, as election law is strict and self-contained.
The court accepted this objection, stating that election petitions are special proceedings that affect the people’s mandate and thus require strict adherence to statutory requirements.
Justice Singh remarked that Sections 81, 82, and 86 of the ROPA represent a “closed procedural code,” leaving no room for judicial discretion when mandatory conditions are unmet.
The court found that allegations made in paragraph 14 of the petition clearly implicated the Congress candidate in the alleged corrupt practices.
Consequently, it was mandatory to implead him, regardless of whether the allegations would ultimately be proven in court. The failure to comply within the designated 45 days was ruled an incurable defect.
Rejecting Bharti’s claim that accepting money did not constitute a corrupt practice, the court emphasized that post-1958 amendments to Section 123 of the ROPA explicitly include receiving gratification in the definition of bribery.
The court noted that this omission undermined the very foundation of the petition’s maintainability and thus dismissed both the election petition and the related application, clarifying that courts cannot ignore or undermine binding statutory requirements based on equity or technical difficulties.
Furthermore, the Court stated that “once a candidate is alleged to have participated in the corrupt practice whether by act, omission, or conspiracy, Section 82(b) mandates that such candidate be impleaded as a respondent.”
The Court referenced the Supreme Court case Mohan Raj v. Surendra Kumar Taparia which established that “when the Act makes a person a necessary party and provides that the petition shall be dismissed if such a party is not joined, the power of amendment or to strike out parties cannot be used at all.”
It concluded that failure to implead a candidate against whom corrupt practices are alleged within 45 days results in a fatal and incurable defect. The Court stressed that it lacks the power to invoke the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, equity, or inherent jurisdiction to salvage such a petition.
“Once the 45 days limitation period expires, the Court does not have jurisdiction to allow such amendment. Allowing the same would amount to rewriting the statute and defeating the legislative intent of section 86(1) of the ROPA. The dismissal is not discretionary but imperative upon non-compliance.”
Thus, the Court ruled that the omission of Shri Jitender Kumar Kochar, against whom allegations had been made, constituted an incurable defect under Section 82(b), leading to mandatory dismissal under Section 86(1).
Consequently, the Court dismissed the election petition.
Appearance:
Somnath Bharti: In person with Advocate Anand Prakash Gautam
Satish Upadhyay: Senior Advocates Rajiv Nayar, Jayant Mehta and Gautam Narayan, with Advocates Saurabh Seth, Sumer Dev Seth, Neelampreet Kaur, Abhiroop Rathore and Kabir Dev
Case Title:
Somnath Bharti v. Satish Upadhyay
EL.PET. 7/2025 & I.A. 8078/2025
READ JUDGMENT
