On Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld the Karnataka High Court's decision not to dismiss a petition filed by K Shivakumar, a leader of the Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), challenging the election of Congress legislator N.A. Haris to the State Legislative Assembly.

Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta, and Ujjal Bhuyan, who formed the Bench, decided not to interfere with the High Court’s order, noting that all arguments could be presented before the High Court.

Shivakumar had contested the 2023 Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections from the Shanti Nagar constituency in Bengaluru, where he lost to Haris. On February 12, the High Court decided to proceed with hearing the case rather than dismissing it outright, and Justice Suraj Govindaraj also rejected an application submitted by Haris. Shivakumar has contended that Haris' nomination papers were accepted illegally due to false declarations.

The Congress leader denied the allegations, asserting that no evidence supporting them had been presented. The High Court reasoned that it was unnecessary to provide evidence showing how the alleged false declarations had impacted the election results. Consequently, Haris filed an appeal with the Supreme Court.

Before the apex court today, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for Haris. Senior Advocate Ranjit Kumar appeared for Shivakumar.