By IANS
Lucknow: Adopting a tough stance, two high courts Wednesday declined to hear three politicians who had sought their intervention in different criminal cases pending against them.
While separate benches of the Allahabad High Court turned down applications of dreaded mafia don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari and budding politician and Bharatiya Janata Party’s Pilibhit nominee Varun Gandhi, the Uttarakhand High Court proved to be equally unobliging for yet another criminal-turned politician Amarmani Tripathi.
It was a strange coincidence that each of the three applications were moved simultaneously before the different courts, in search of almost identical relief.
However, what was equally coincidental that neither of the court benches thought of taking any lenient view in any of the cases.
Ansari was denied the court’s permission to file his nomination for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, from where he has been fielded by Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
A division bench comprising judges Ashok Bhushan and Arun Saran declared that since Ansari was already in judicial custody, his voting rights automatically stood suspended. “When he cannot exercise his right to vote, then how could he be entitled to file his nomination?” the bench wondered.
Another division bench of judges Imtiaz Murtaza and Subhash Chandra Nigam declined to stay the arrest of Varun Gandhi, whose anti-Muslim diatribe at public rallies had put him in the dock and attracted a criminal case.
The Uttrakhand High Court too turned out to be equally unhelpful to former minister Amarmani Tripathi, who had also sought bail to be able to contest the Lok Sabha elections.
Tripathi faces serious charges, including the murder of young Hindi poetess Madhumita Shukla, with whom he was said to have been having an affair until she became pregnant.