A candidate's election can be dismissed if s/he provided incorrect information in their nomination papers, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday. A bench comprising justices AR Dave and L Nageswara Rao said voters had the right to know their likely representatives' educational qualifications to make an informed decision, PTI reported.

"The voter has the choice to decide whether he should cast a vote in favour of a person involved in a criminal case. He also has a right to decide whether holding of an educational qualification or holding of property is relevant for electing a person to be his representative," the bench said, adding that if candidates provide the right information, it can lead to an efficient "democratic governing system".

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The ruling follows the court's dismissal of Manipur Nationalist Congress Party MLA Mairembam Prithviraj's election after it was proved that he had falsely claimed in his nomination papers that he had an MBA degree, The Times of India reported. The legislator had dismissed the incorrect information as a "clerical error" committed by his lawyer and agent who had filed the nomination papers in 2012 on his behalf. The court had denied his plea.

In 2015, a case was filed against former human resource development minister Smriti Irani, which alleged that the information on the degrees she had provided before the 2004 Lok Sabha elections differed from that in her 2011 Rajya Sabha nomination papers in Gujarat. The documents from 2004 say Irani has a BA degree from Delhi University (school of correspondence), while those from 2011 show that her highest educational qualification was a BCom Part 1 (correspondence course) from DU.

The development prompted a Delhi court to direct the state Election Commission to provide her educational qualification records. On October 18, however, the Patiala court dismissed a petition that called for Irani to be summoned in connection with the case.