Kochi: The Kerala High Court has disqualified Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) legislator K M Shaji in response to a fresh petition against his election from Azhikode assembly constituency. The plea was filed by Balan, a CPM worker in the constituency.

The court has granted a stay on its latest order until January 7, allowing Shaji time to file an appeal in the Supreme Court. The High Court has also barred Shaji for six years from contesting.

This is the second time the HC has disqualified Shaji in two months. The court had disqualified him in November in a case filed by losing candidate M V Nikesh Kumar of the CPM. He had then moved the Supreme Court.

As Shaji's appeal is pending, the Supreme Court allowed him to take part in the recent assembly session.

The Azhikode state assembly seat has fallen vacant after the Kerala High Court disqualified Shaji, and refused to declare the petitioner and losing candidate Kumar as winner in the 2016 election.

If Shaji's appeal is turned down in the Supreme Court, a byelection to the seat will have to be held within six months.

Another wrangle

The court, meanwhile, is expected to take up on Friday a fresh petition filed by Shaji against Sreejith Koderi, the former sub-inspector of Valapattanam, whom he has accused of presenting false evidence in court. Shaji's plea is based on newly revealed police documents that state it was CPM worker K T Abdul Nasser who handed over to the police a notice with communal overtones that Shaji was accused to have used in the campaign. The police officer had told the court that the notice was recovered from the house of a local leader of the UDF, of which the IUML is a partner.

This is not the first-ever disqualification of an MLA in Kerala. CPM leader O Bharathan was disqualified in 1992. The High Court disqualified Bharathan, who was elected from Edakkad in 1991, and declared his rival K Sudhakaran of the Congress party as winner. Sudhakaran was sworn in as MLA, but Bharathan won his appeal in the Supreme Court and returned as MLA in 1996.

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