Karnataka High Court dismissed a petition claiming CM Siddaramaiah’s 2023 election win was due to corrupt practices. The Court found no proof that Congress’ guarantee schemes amounted to bribery.
Bangalore: The Karnataka High Court today dismissed a petition that challenged the 2023 election of Congress leader and present Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, from the Varuna constituency. The case was titled K Shankara v. Sri Siddaramaiah and the verdict was given by Justice Sunil Dutt Yadav. A detailed judgment from the Court is still awaited.
The petition was filed by K Shankara, a resident and voter of the Varuna constituency. He argued that the five pre-poll promises or “guarantees” made by the Indian National Congress (INC) in their 2023 Karnataka election manifesto amounted to offering bribes and thus should be considered a corrupt practice under the Representation of the People Act.
Shankara said:
these guarantees were announced with the full knowledge and consent of Siddaramaiah. According to him, these guarantees were meant to “gratify” or give benefits to voters of the Varuna constituency, in order to influence them to vote for the Congress party.
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Because of this, he claimed that Siddaramaiah had engaged in corrupt electoral practices. He requested the Court to not only declare Siddaramaiah’s election from Varuna as void, but also to disqualify him from contesting in any election for a period of six years.
Senior Advocate Pramila Nesargi represented the petitioner in Court.
She argued that:
the Congress’ five guarantees were biased, especially against men, and therefore violated the right to equality given under Article 14 of the Constitution. She said that “the Congress’ five guarantee scheme discriminated against men and violated the right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution.” She further stated, “Siddaramaiah’s election should be cancelled since he had resorted to malpractices such as bribing voters ahead of the elections.”
Nesargi pointed out that:
the guarantees — including free bus rides for women, free electricity, free rice distribution, financial support for women-led households, and unemployment allowances for graduates — were examples of illegal attempts to lure voters. She said these schemes were used in a wrongful way to attract voters, which should be seen as bribery and misuse of power.
The Karnataka High Court had earlier, in July 2023, sought a response from Siddaramaiah regarding these allegations.
Senior Advocate Ravivarma Kumar appeared on behalf of Siddaramaiah. He strongly denied all the accusations made by the petitioner.
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According to him:
there was absolutely no proof that the Congress manifesto or guarantees were used to bribe voters. He stated that “there is no evidence to back claims that the Congress election manifesto amounted to luring voters through bribery.”
He also criticised the petition, calling it nothing but a repetition of previously filed cases. He said, “the petition is a work of copy-paste,” and further argued that “it is liable to be dismissed on that ground alone.”
Interestingly, a similar case was filed earlier against Rizwan Arshad, another Congress MLA from the Shivajinagar constituency, whose 2023 election was also challenged on the same grounds. That case too was dismissed by Justice S Vishwajith Shetty of the Karnataka High Court in March 2024.
Senior Advocate Ravivarma Kumar noted that this current petition filed against Siddaramaiah was almost exactly the same as the one filed against Rizwan Arshad. He said, “the petition challenging the Chief Minister’s election has also been filed with identical pleadings.”
With this ruling, the Karnataka High Court has confirmed that mere promises or election guarantees made in a party’s manifesto cannot automatically be considered bribery or corrupt practices under the election laws, unless there is clear and specific evidence to prove such charges.
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