SC trashes sacked BSF jawan’s plea against rejection of nomination papers to contest polls against PM

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the plea of sacked BSF jawan Tej Bahadur against the rejection of his nomination papers to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the Varanasi constituency.

A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, which had reserved its verdict in the case on November 18, upheld the Allahabad High Court judgment dismissing Tej Bahadur's election petition against the poll panel's decision to reject his nomination papers.

On May 1 last year, the returning officer had rejected the nomination papers of Tej Bahadur, a Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate, who was dismissed from the Border Security Force (BSF) in 2017 after he posted a video online complaining about the quality of food served to the troops.

The high court had upheld the returning officer's decision to reject his nomination.