Raj Narain Vs Indira Gandhi : Allahabad HC Verdict Traced
Raj Narain Vs Indira Gandhi : Allahabad HC Verdict Traced
The judgment of the Allahabad High Court delivered on June 12, 1975, setting aside the election of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, has been finally traced.
This verdict delivered by Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha in the election petition filed by Raj Narain set off the chain of events which led to the eventual imposition of emergency for a period of 21 months from June 25, 1975.
Though historic, the copy of the judgment was not available in court reports. The judgment was off the grid in online search as well. The elusive nature of the judgment had become a talking point in media recently.
Now, thanks to the painstaking efforts of Atharva Legal, a full copy of the 262-page judgment has been obtained from the HC registry. Siddharth Nayak, Advocate and Managing Partner of Atharva Legal has shared the judgment with LiveLaw for the benefit of readers.
The judgment declared the election of Indira Gandhi from Rae Bareilly constituency “null and void”, and barred Gandhi from holding elected office for six years. The High Court, while rejecting the charges of bribery, found her guilty of misusing government machinery for election campaign purposes.
Indira Gandhi appealed against the judgment before the Supreme Court. On June 24, 1975, a vacation bench of Justice V R Krishna Iyer, granted a conditional stay of the verdict, allowing Gandhi to continue as Prime Minister but restraining her from voting in the house. On 7 November 1975, the Supreme Court overturned the HC verdict.