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The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed, with a cost of Rs one lakh, a plea filed by a lawyer challenging the restoration of Nationalist Congress Party Leader Mohammed Faizal's Lok Sabha membership.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Aravind Kumar, and Prashant Kumar Mishra dismissed the plea, saying it's a public interest litigation (PIL) petition, and imposed a cost of Rs one lakh on a lawyer who filed the plea. It asked the lawyer to deposit Rs 50,000 each in the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) fund and the Supreme Court Advocate-on-Record (SCORA) welfare fund, respectively. The bench slammed lawyer Ashok Pandey for filing a petition for publicity and observed that the petition was an abuse of the process of law as no fundamental right of the petitioner had been violated. "We are not going to entertain the petition just because your name can appear in the newspaper," Justice Gavai said. Initially, the bench was imposing a cost of Rs. five lakh on the lawyer; however, it reduced the fine to Rs. one lakh after the petitioner requested the apex court not to impose the cost. The petitioner, Lucknow-based advocate Ashok Pandey, said that once a Member of Parliament loses their office due to conviction in a criminal case, they will continue to be disqualified until their acquittal by a higher court. Last week, the top court imposed a cost of Rs. five lakh on Pandey for filing a petition contending that the oath taken by the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court was invalid as he did not use the word 'I'. Pandey challenged the notification of the Lok Sabha Secretariat restoring the membership of Lakshadweep MP Mohammed Faizal after the Kerala High Court stayed his conviction and sentence in a criminal case. Pandey has also filed another petition challenging the restoration of Lok Sabha membership of Rahul Gandhi, which is pending. (ANI)
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