Bombay High Court dismisses plea alleging irregularities in Maharashtra Assembly polls

On Wednesday, June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court of Bombay rejected the petition of a writer who challenged the validity of the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections and described the case as “gross abuse of the legal process”. Justice GS Kulkarni and Justice Arif Doctor’s a division counter, the petition opened by Cetan Chandrakant Ahire, a resident of Mumbai, decided that there was no legal merit, matter and locus stand.

The counter said, “There is no doubt that this author’s petition should be rejected as a summary. Accordingly, the hearing of this petition has left our list aside from the emergency cause and therefore we avoid doing this because we would definitely require the petition to be dismissed at cost.”

Ahire, a voter from the Mumbai-Vikhroli election zone, sought comprehensive reliefs, including the cancellation of the results in the election zone of 288 Assembly, the withdrawal of the election certificates given to the winning candidates, and the return to paper votes. Lawyer Prakash Ambedkar, supported by defenders Sandesh More and Hitndra Gandhi, on November 20, 2024, on the day of the polls, after 18:00, about 76 lakh games were illegally published, and a response was given to claim that there was no official data for the voting.

However, the Court found that Ahire did not submit an election petition under the representation of the 1951 People’s Law or did not represent the Indian Election Commission (ECI) in advance. Judges, “In such a weak, weak and inadequate objection, the petition wants to continue the petition,” he said.

The counter also criticized the petition to rely on a RTI response and speculative newspaper reports obtained by journalist Venkatesh Nayak. “There is no other material, much less than any originality. We wonder how the petition can have such a room to seek so wide, sweeping and hard reliefs to question all the elections of the State Legislative Assembly. On the basis of the reasons, especially in this regard, this is particularly stated, as stated, in particular, on the grounds of the election of the Legislative Assembly, as well as any of the laws of the Legislative Assembly.

Senior lawyer Ashutosh Kumbhaconi, representing ECI, argued that the petition had no legal stance to challenge the elections throughout the state. In addition, he stressed that the petition cannot apply any of the winning candidates-a procedure that makes the elimination of the elimination.

Lawyer Uday Warunjikar, representing the Indian Union, added that Ahire has jumped a compulsory way to submit an election petition within 45 days after the result statement and did not follow the legal procedures to search for Mandamus.

The court could not find evidence of fraud or illegal voting, and stressed that the petition could not show any personal legal injury or applicable rights. The court said, ız We cannot find a ‘scratch of a legal complaint’, not much less legal injury, ”he said.

In Strong Rebuke, The Bench Stated: “we are also quite astonished asonished as a writal petition can be filled on the basis of a single newspaper article article canvass. In the newspaper of one Shri, the except material, Much Limited Material, Much Limited Material. It is clear that a petition underneath cannot be protected.

Although the court stated that a day had heard the petition, he avoided costing. The decision re -confirms the legal principle that the disputes related to the elections are not supported by concrete evidence, not through the authority of summer judiciary, but through election petitions.