Bombay High Court Rejects Election Petition Against Malegaon Central MLA, Finds No Corrupt Practice in Dua or Campaign Speeches

Justice N.J. Jamadar dismissed the election petition challenging Mufti Mohammad Ismail's 162-vote victory, holding that prayers for electoral success and campaign speeches did not constitute corrupt practices under the RP Act, and that the dead-voter allegations lacked the material particulars required by Section 83.

The Bombay High Court has rejected an election petition that sought to void the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly victory of Mufti Mohammad Ismail Abdul Khalique from the Malegaon Central Constituency. Justice N.J. Jamadar, sitting singly, allowed the returned candidate's application under Order 7 Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 read with Section 86(1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (“RP Act, 1951”), and rejected Election Petition No. 7 of 2025 in its entirety on 8 June 2026. The court found that the petition failed to contain the concise statement of material facts and full particulars mandated by Section 83 of the RP Act, 1951, and that several of the alleged acts, even accepted at face value, did not constitute corrupt practices.

The Malegaon Central Election and the Petition

General elections to the Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly were held on 20 November 2024. Shaikh Asif Shaikh Rasheed (“the Petitioner”) contested from Malegaon Central Constituency as the official candidate of the Indian Secular Largest Assembly of Maharashtra (ISLAM), on the “Auto Rikshaw” symbol. Mufti Mohammad Ismail Abdul Khalique, Respondent No. 1, contested as the official candidate of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) on the “Kite” symbol.

Counting was held on 23 November 2024. The Petitioner secured 1,09,491 votes. Respondent No. 1 secured 1,09,653 votes and was declared elected by a margin of 162 votes.

The Petitioner filed Election Petition No. 7 of 2025 before the Bombay High Court assailing the election on multiple grounds. He sought a declaration that Respondent No. 1's election was void on account of corrupt practices under Part VII of the RP Act, 1951, and also sought a declaration that the Petitioner himself had been duly elected. The petition also raised the improper reception of void votes as an additional ground.

Six Grounds of Challenge

The petition rested on six distinct grounds.

First, Respondent No. 1, who serves as Imam of Jame Masjid and Eid-gaah at Malegaon, allegedly said “Dua” (prayers) for his electoral success after congregational namaz and caused followers to say “Amen”, which the Petitioner characterised as extracting a pledge of votes. Specific instances were alleged on 25 October 2024, 17 November 2024 and 18 November 2024, and also by one Alim Falahi on 12 November 2024.

Second, Respondent No. 1 and his campaigners allegedly made speeches stoking religious feelings of Muslims at Malegaon. Seven excerpts of such speeches were extracted in the petition. The Petitioner averred that these speeches were made in Respondent No. 1's presence, with his authorisation and assent, and amounted to soliciting votes on the ground of religion under Section 123(3) of the RP Act, 1951.

Third, Respondent No. 1's campaigner Asaduddin Owaisi allegedly vilified the Petitioner by comparing him to “Yazid” — a figure regarded as the principal enemy of Islam by many of its followers — and called him a “drug peddler”. The Petitioner alleged these were deliberate false statements made to prejudice his election by impeaching his personal character, attracting Section 123(4) of the RP Act, 1951.

Fourth, Respondent No. 1 and his agents allegedly promoted feelings of enmity between “Dakhani Muslims” and “Momins” — intra-community classifications specific to Malegaon — attracting Section 123(3-A) of the RP Act, 1951.

Fifth, Respondent No. 1's sister, Ms. Rafea Abdul Khalique, and daughter, Ms. Sarah Mufti Ismail, allegedly distributed pamphlets and solicited votes on religious grounds, including a pamphlet asserting that those who elect a woman as their leader can never prosper. Additionally, religious organisations Jamiyat-e-ulma and Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Malegaon publicly declared their support for Respondent No. 1 and appealed to voters to vote for him on religious grounds.

Sixth, the Petitioner claimed that approximately 1,082 dead persons were included in the voters list of the Constituency and were shown to have cast votes in the election of 20 November 2024, rendering those votes void under Section 100(1)(d)(iii) of the RP Act, 1951. Given the margin of only 162 votes, the Petitioner contended this materially affected the result.

The Returned Candidate's Application for Rejection

Respondent No. 1 filed Application (L) No. 28990 of 2025 seeking rejection of the petition at the threshold under Order 7 Rule 11 of the Code and Section 86(1) of the RP Act, 1951. He contended that the petition neither complied with the correct procedure for presentation nor contained allegations substantiated with the precise facts required to constitute a cause of action.

Mr. Shadan Farasat, Senior Advocate for Respondent No. 1, argued that the pleadings were vague, unsubstantiated and did not satisfy the test under Section 83(1) of the RP Act, 1951. Section 83(1)(a) requires a concise statement of material facts; Section 83(1)(b) requires full particulars of every alleged corrupt practice, including the names of the parties, and the date and place of commission of each practice. Mr. Farasat urged that none of the grounds met this threshold.

On the substance, Mr. Farasat relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Dr. Ramesh Yashwant Prabhoo v. Prabhakar Kashinath Kunte to submit that a mere reference to religion in a campaign speech is not forbidden by Section 123(3) so long as it does not amount to an appeal to vote, or refrain from voting, on the ground of religion. He also relied on Manohar Joshi v. Nitin Bhaurao Patil for the proposition that presence of a candidate when an allegedly offending speech is delivered is not sufficient to infer consent; consent must be specifically pleaded and proved.

Mr. S.S. Patwardhan, counsel for the Petitioner, resisted the application on two fronts. First, he argued that non-compliance with Section 83 is not a ground for dismissal under Section 86(1) of the RP Act, 1951, which lists only Sections 81, 82 and 117 as grounds for mandatory dismissal. Second, he argued that the pleadings did, in fact, contain adequate material facts and particulars, and that issues had already been settled, making the rejection application belated. He relied on Virender Nath Gautam v. Satpal Singh for the distinction between material facts and material particulars, submitting that if better particulars were required, the remedy was not rejection. He further argued that the thin margin of 162 votes against 1,082 alleged void votes raised questions that could only be resolved at trial, and that the petition could not be rejected in part.

The Court's Reasoning

Justice Jamadar began by addressing the preliminary objection that non-compliance with Section 83 cannot ground a rejection under Order 7 Rule 11 because Section 86 does not list Section 83. The court rejected this argument by drawing a clear distinction between “dismissal” under Section 86 of the RP Act, 1951 and “rejection” under Order 7 Rule 11 of the Code. Dismissal under Section 86 operates as a final order under Section 98(1), foreclosing any fresh petition on the same cause of action. Rejection under Order 7 Rule 11 does not carry this consequence and allows a fresh petition within the limitation period. The court relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Azhar Hussain v. Rajiv Gandhi which confirmed that an election petition can be summarily dismissed if it does not disclose a cause of action, and that Order 7 Rule 11 applies fully through the gateway of Section 87 of the RP Act, 1951.

On the standard for pleadings, the court restated the settled position: an election petition must contain material facts that would, if untraversed, sustain the annulment of the election. Omission of even a single material fact leads to an incomplete cause of action. The court drew on Karim Uddin Barbhuiya v. Aminul Haque Laskar and Kanimozhi Karunanidhi v. A. Santhana Kumar for the further proposition that a charge of corrupt practice is in the nature of a criminal charge and must be proved beyond doubt, making precise, specific and unambiguous pleading indispensable.

Turning to the Dua allegations, the court examined the general averments in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the petition. The assertion in paragraph 5 made no reference to time, place or the content of the specific Dua, and no specific instance was identified. Paragraph 6 named specific dates and instances, but the substance of the allegation was that saying Dua for electoral success and receiving an “Amen” from the audience constituted a corrupt practice. The court disagreed. Relying on the Oxford Hindi and English Dictionary and Encyclopaedia Britannica, Justice Jamadar found that Dua is an act of invoking divine blessings and that Amen is an expression of agreement with what has been prayed — materially distinct from a pledge or formal promise to vote. “A Dua (prayer) is an act of invoking blessings, help or mercy of the God,” the court held, and saying Amen amounts to seconding the prayer, not making a commitment to vote. Praying for success in the electoral fray, the court held, has neither the trappings of soliciting votes on the ground of religion nor of prejudicing a rival candidate with reference to his religion.

On the speech extracted in paragraph 7(d) of the petition, in which Respondent No. 1 narrated the story of the Prophet's mother's death and compared his own experience of suffering heart attacks to that of having received a second life from God, the court found the inference drawn by the Petitioner — that this amounted to soliciting votes on the basis of religion — to be “plainly far-fetched.” The analogy may have been exaggerated, the court observed, but it did not constitute a corrupt practice. Similarly, the Dua extracted in paragraph 7(f), in which Respondent No. 1 called upon God to grant success in the election, was found to be a supplication to the divine and nothing more. The court noted that Respondent No. 1 may have played on sympathy arising from his illness, but that was beside the point.

On the speeches of agents and campaigners, the court examined the distinction between Section 100(1)(b) and Section 100(1)(d)(ii) of the RP Act, 1951. Under Section 100(1)(b), a corrupt practice by any person with the consent of the returned candidate or his election agent is sufficient to void an election. Under Section 100(1)(d)(ii), a corrupt practice by an agent other than the election agent voids the election only if it materially affected the result, but without requiring consent. The court, applying Manohar Joshi, held that mere presence of the candidate at a meeting where an offending speech is delivered is not sufficient to infer consent under Section 100(1)(b). Implied consent cannot be presumed from presence alone.

The court also found that the petition did not adequately plead how the various speakers qualified as agents of Respondent No. 1, and that the assertion of consent was conclusory rather than factual. The failure to plead the specific relationship between Respondent No. 1 and each speaker, and the precise conduct amounting to authorisation or assent, left the pleadings short of the Section 83(1)(b) threshold.

On the religious organisations' support, the court applied the principle from Kultar Singh v. Mukhtiar Singh that courts must not be astute to read into words used in an appeal anything more than their fair and reasonable construction. The support extended by Jamiyat-e-ulma and Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Malegaon to Respondent No. 1's candidature did not, on the pleadings and material before the court, amount to a corrupt practice.

On the dead-voter ground, the court found the pleadings scanty and speculative. The petition contained a solitary assertion in paragraph 15 that dead persons had been shown to have voted, supported only by a self-prepared report naming 1,082 persons and death certificates for 9 persons from Ward No. 3. No affidavit of any polling agent was filed stating that votes were cast in the name of dead persons. No material was placed on record showing disputes raised at the time of polling. The court drew directly on the reasoning of another learned single judge of the same court in Shobha Dinesh Bacchav v. Dr. Subhash Ramrao Bhamre, which had repelled an identical challenge concerning the very same Malegaon Central Constituency in the Parliamentary elections. That judgment held that the mere presence of dead persons' names on the electoral roll does not permit a court to presume that votes were cast in their names, and that an affidavit from a polling agent with direct knowledge is the minimum threshold for such an allegation. Justice Jamadar held that those reasons applied with equal force to the present petition.

Having found each ground to be either unsupported by material facts and full particulars, or incapable of constituting a corrupt practice even if accepted at face value, the court concluded that the election petition failed to make out a complete cause of action to merit trial.

Order

By its order dated 8 June 2026, the Bombay High Court allowed Interim Application (L) No. 28990 of 2025 filed by Respondent No. 1 and rejected Election Petition No. 7 of 2025 in its entirety. No order as to costs was made.