In a significant development, a Nagpur court on Friday declared Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis "not guilty" in connection with a complaint alleging his failure to disclose pending criminal cases in his poll affidavit ahead of the 2014 assembly elections.
Civil judge and judicial magistrate SS Jadhav delivered the judgment after Fadnavis accepted that he had failed to disclose the criminal cases but said that it was not deliberate but an oversight on the part of his lawyer who was entrusted wih the task.
The complaint had been filed by Satish Uke, an advocate, who sought criminal proceedings against Fadnavis, asserting that the BJP leader had not disclosed cases of cheating and forgery registered against him in 1996 and 1998 in his election affidavit.
On April 15, Fadnavis himself admitted that two cases were not mentioned in his 2014 election affidavit as pointed out by Uke, terming it as an “inadvertent mistake” that took place from his lawyer.
In the statement submitted on April 15, Fadnavis had said there was no intention to deliberately conceal information about the two “insignificant” complaint cases and their non-inclusion in the affidavit of Form 26 was “sheer inadvertence and without any intention”.
Fadnavis, who represents the Nagpur South West assembly constituency, stated that he had disclosed cases of a more severe nature in his election affidavit.
The 2023 trial in this case, which was before the civil court senior division in Nagpur, was a retrial of a 2014 case.