New Delhi, Mar 25 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice on an appeal by former Congress MLA Arif Naseem Khan challenging the Bombay High Court order dismissing his petition challenging the election of his rival Shiv Sena MLA in 2019.

A bench of justices S K Kaul and M M Sundresh sought response from MLA Dilip Bhausaheb Lande and others within six weeks.

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"Issue notice returnable in six weeks," the bench said.

Khan in his appeal filed in the top court contended that the high court dismissed his plea in an arbitrary and unjustified manner.

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Senior advocate C A Sundaram and advocate Chirag M Shroff appeared for Khan.

Khan contended that there were certain concocted and doctored videos of him which Lande deliberately circulated on WhatsApp portraying him as a radical Muslim leader.

The petitioner's speech was deliberately and dishonestly manipulated with a view to show the petitioner to be anti-national, the plea said.

He had further claimed that members of Shiv Sena, including its chief Uddhav Thackeray, had violated the model code of conduct by the Election Commission and addressed audiences within the prohibited period of 48 hours.

"The impugned judgment has erred in dismissing the election petition on the basis that there is no nexus made between the doctored videos of the petitioner and the returned candidate. The merits of the same should be adjudicated at the time of appreciation of evidence and not while assessing if the petition prima facie has cause of action.

"In the light of the same, the high court has erred in ignoring the contraventions of Section 126 and Section 100(1)(d)(iv) of the Representation of the People Act and dismissing the Petition for the alleged lack of material facts apropos a distinct cause of action," the appeal in the top court said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)