‘Star campaigner’s air travel expense outside constituency not

personal poll expenditure’ New Delhi, Aug 28 (PTI) Expenses incurred by a "starcampaigner" on travelling by air outside his constituencycannot be computed as his personal election expenditure as acandidate, the Supreme Court has said. A bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar ordered deletionof a paragraph, regarding expenses, in an election plea filedagainst an MLA in Madhya Pradesh on the ground that being astar campaigner, he was required to campaign for the politicalparty outside his constituency also. The names of stars campaigners are communicated to theElection Commission by the party. As per section 77 of the Representation of the PeopleAct, 1951 the expenditure incurred by a star campaigner onaccount of travel for propagating the programme of thepolitical party is excluded for the purpose of computing theexpenditure incurred by him. The verdict came on the petition filed by Congress MLAfrom Madhya Pradesh and son of late Union minister ArjunSingh, Ajay Arjun Singh. The petitioner, MLA from Churahat Assembly constituency,moved the apex court against the Madhya Pradesh High Courtorder refusing to dismiss the election petition filed bydefeated BJP candidate Sharadendu Tiwari in the 2013 Assemblyelections. Singh had won the election by a margin of 19,356votes. Tiwari had contended that Singh has not disclosed hisactual expenditure which he incurred in connection with apublic meeting of Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi at thedistrict headquarters, Sidhi on November 20, 2013. "The specific pleading in the election petition is thatthe appellant herein used the helicopter on many occasionsduring the relevant period only between Bhopal and Sidhi, bothof which are outside the constituency of the appellant. Theadmitted fact is that the appellant was one of the starcampaigners for the said election for the State of MadhyaPradesh. "Therefore, he was required to campaign for his politicalparty, not only in his constituency but also in otherconstituencies of the State. In the absence of any allegationthat the appellant used the helicopter for travelling within76-Churahat constituency for the purpose of campaigning, theexpenditure incurred on that account, in our opinion, cannotbe included in the election expenditure of the appellant," thebench also comprising Justice A M Sapre said. (More) PTI PKSSJK RKSDV