HC: Mukhtar Ansari has no right to canvass

Legal Correspondent

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New Delhi, February 27

The Delhi High Court today ruled that gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari had no right to campaign for the March 4 Assembly poll in UP’s Mau constituency, where he is seeking re-election as a BSP candidate.

Justice Mukta Gupta declared as “illegal” the permission granted to Ansari by a trial court here on February 16 for campaigning from 7 am to 8 pm till March 4. The HC stayed the Sessions Court order the very next day on an appeal by the EC.

Lodged in a Lucknow jail, Ansari is facing trial for his alleged role in the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai and his six supporters in the Bhanwarkol area of Ghazipur district on November 29, 2005. The Supreme Court transferred the trial to Delhi in 2013 on a plea by Rai’s wife Alka. Ansari is also facing 40 other criminal cases. “A free and fair election is the basic structure of the Constitution, but no candidate has a legal right to canvas for himself de-hors the other statutory restrictions. When a person in custody fills up a nomination for candidature, he does not get a vested right to be released for canvassing. He runs the risk of being not released on bail to canvas for himself,” the HC held.

The UP Government had supported EC’s plea for setting aside the trial court order. “The impugned order is thus ex facie illegal and is set aside on this count itself,” the HC ruled. The HC was not convinced by Ansari’s plea that the prosecution had already examined 41 witnesses, including all eyewitnesses, and that only police witnesses had to be examined in trial.