The Delhi High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition seeking the disqualification of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from contesting the Lok Sabha elections, Live Law reported.
The petition was filed by Deepak Kumar, a pilot, who claimed that Modi had submitted a false oath to the returning officer that he would bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India.
Kumar also accused the prime minister of conspiring to destabilise national security. He alleged that Modi had planned the crash of an Air India flight being flown by Kumar in 2018.
Justice Sachin Datta dismissed the petition as reckless and said that Kumar had made unsubstantiated allegations.
According to Datta, the plea was filed with mala fide intentions to “make scandalous allegations without any basis”.
Kumar had also sought the disqualification of Union ministers Amit Shah and Jyotiraditya Scindia.
“Candidate Modi has obstructed the investigation of serious allegations against him and his accomplices,” said the plea. “The petitioner for being a Scheduled Caste is made to face an economic and social boycott orchestrated by Modi’s accomplices. Candidate Modi is abusing his post of Prime Minister of India by shielding himself and his accomplices from legal scrutiny.”
On April 29, Datta dismissed another petition seeking to disqualify the prime minister, reported Live Law. The petition, filed by Anand S Jondhale, a lawyer, said that Modi had sought votes in the name of religion during the Lok Sabha elections campaign.
A petition seeking registration of a first information report against the prime minister over his alleged hate speech targeting Muslims during election campaigning was dismissed on May 13.
Datta had said that the petition was “misconceived” and devoid of merit. The court said that the matter is pending with the Election Commission, which will take an independent view on the complaint as per the law.
The petition objected to a speech made by Modi on April 21 in Rajasthan’s Banswara, when he first claimed that the Congress plans to distribute citizens’ private wealth among “infiltrators” and “those who have more children”, a dog-whistle reference to Muslims, if voted to power.
Modi was purportedly referring to remarks that Congress leader Manmohan Singh had made on December 9, 2006, in an address to the National Development Council. Singh, the prime minister at the time, had said that the country’s priorities were to uplift the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, minorities, and women and children.
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