The Bombay High Court on Wednesday rejected a petition that sought to declare the state assembly elections null and void, following an allegation that 76 lakh bogus votes were cast after the voting ended at 6 pm on November 20 last year.

Justices Girish Kulkarni and Arif Doctor stated that there was nothing on record to show that any polling station in Maharashtra witnessed any untoward incident or fraud, and said, "There is nothing on record that at any polling station in the state of Maharashtra, any untoward incident or fraud took place. We, hence, fail to discern how, in the absence of any tangible material acceptable in law, which also needs to be booth-wise, there was any fraudulent voting."

The petition was filed by Chetan Ahire, a voter from the Vikhroli constituency, who relied on a Right to Information reply obtained by Delhi resident Venkatesh Nayak from the Election Commission of India, which said, "there is no data available about these votes with the ECI," and Ahire argued that these votes could not be considered while declaring the election results.

Senior advocate Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, who appeared for the Election Commission, and the Centre’s counsel, Uday Warunjikar, both urged the court to dismiss the petition, calling it a "gross abuse of the process of law," and said, "We wonder how the petitioner can have a locus standi to seek such wide, sweeping, and drastic reliefs to question the entire elections of the state legislative assembly."

The judges stated that the relief being sought was too far-fetched and based on no cause of action, and observed that this was more so because of the constitutional and statutory bar that no election to either House of a state legislature shall be called into question, except by an election petition, which can be filed only by a voter or a contesting candidate.

They noted that Ahire had failed to demonstrate any legal injury, and therefore did not have the locus to maintain the writ petition as a result.

The judges described the submission made by Ahire’s advocate, Prakash Ambedkar, that the conduct of the poll had violated the basic structure of the Constitution and infringed on Ahire’s fundamental rights, as "wholly without foundation."

They also said that although farcical claims are often made about the purity of the state assembly election process, especially regarding EVMs and the demand to return to ballot papers, "such plea of the petitioner appears to be in absolute desperation," and further added that the use of EVMs had already been held to be legal and valid by the Supreme Court.