The Delhi High Court on Tuesday declined to waive the cost of Rs 25,000 imposed on a petitioner who had challenged nomination of AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan for election as a member of the Delhi Waqf Board.
The high court said the petitioner, in his petition, had said he would pay the costs, if it was imposed, and that he had the means to do so and now he was claiming financial hardship.
“Who asked you to file the petition,” a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan asked the petitioner, Mohd Tufail Khan, and dismissed the application moved by him for waiving of the cost imposed on him.
The court also declined to entertain the petitioner’s lawyer’s plea that the costs be reduced.
The bench said that in the writ petition “all manner of allegations were made” against the AAP MLA without making him a party.
It said that while dismissing the petition, it was of the opinion that the plea was not a bonafide one and “today also we are of the same opinion”.
“We see no reason to entertain the application,” it added.
Khan, who claims to be a social worker, had alleged that the Delhi government’s decision to nominate the AAP MLA for election as a member of the Board was “illegal, arbitrary and biased”.
The petitioner had contended that the AAP leader was an accused in a case lodged by CBI on a complaint of corruption made in 2016 by the then Lt Governor of Delhi and was also accused by the CEO and a member of the Board in 2019 of having allegedly misappropriated waqf land worth thousands of crores.
Besides that a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act has been lodged against the AAP leader by the Anti Corruption Branch, the petition had claimed.
In view of these corruption cases against him, the AAP MLA ought not to be nominated for being elected to the Board, the petition had contended.