Himachal court gives relief to independent MP, father of Congress rebels

Shimla:

The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Tuesday granted interim anticipatory notice to the father of independent Hamirpur MP Ashish Sharma and Gagret MLA Chaitanya Sharma On bail, they were booked by the police for “electoral offences” and criminal conspiracy.

After hearing the anticipatory bail applications filed by Rakesh Sharma and Ashish Sharma, father of Gagret MLA Chetanya Sharma, Justice Ranjan Sharma directed the applicants to register themselves at Boileauganj police station on March 15 and cooperate with the investigation.

Himachal Pradesh police on Sunday registered a case against the two MLAs and other MLAs for alleged “electoral offences” bribery and criminal conspiracy in connection with the recent Lok Sabha polls, in which six Congress MLAs voted. BJP candidate in the state.

Ashish and Chetaniya were among the nine MLAs, including six Congress rebels and three independents, who voted for BJP nominee Harsh in the recently held Lok Sabha polls · Mahajan.

The case against them was filed under IPC sections 171 c and e (undue influence on elections and bribery) and 120 b (criminal conspiracy) and Sections 7 and 8 (exploiting of undue advantage by public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 ) was registered based on complaints filed by MPs Sanjay Avasthi and Bhuvneshwar Gaur.

In the complaint, lawmakers allege “horse trading and misuse of money to influence elections” and criminal conspiracy, and seek an investigation into allegations of money trading, misuse of helicopters and security forces, and criminal misconduct.

Reacting to the development, nine MLAs said the pressure tactics of cracking down on the businesses of independent MLAs and their families and registering false cases against them will not save the government.

Six Congress MPs of the BJP were cross-voted, namely Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Kumar Bhutto for defying the whip by attending the House and voting for the people The party was disqualified. The government approached the Supreme Court during the cuts motion and budget period.

The three independents include Ashish Sharma, Hoshiyar Singh and KL Thakur.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)