SC to hear on Oct 15 Ahmed Patel's petition against plea challenging his RS election

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would hear on October 15 a plea of senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel seeking stay on further proceedings in the Gujarat High Court regarding his 2017 election to the Rajya Sabha which has been challenged by rival BJP candidate Balwantsinh Rajput.

The matter came up for hearing before a bench of justices N V Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari and the counsel representing Rajput told the court that recording of evidence in the matter before high court was "almost over". "We will hear the matter," the bench said.

Patel's counsel told the apex court that recording of evidence in the matter was over and high court has listed the case for further proceeding in this week itself.

Rajput's counsel argued that ongoing proceedings before the high court should not be stayed and the top court had earlier also said that the proceedings would go on.

"Instead of staying the matter, this court can say that order (of high court) will be subject to the outcome of the petition pending here," the lawyer said.

The bench, which said it would hear the matter on October 15, asked both the parties to request the high court to defer the case pending there till then.

"Nothing will happen till October 15," the bench said.

Patel has challenged the order of the high court by which it had dismissed his plea questioning the maintainability of Rajput's election petition.

Earlier, the apex court had declined to interfere with the October 26, 2018 order of the high court which had said that Rajput's allegations required a trial.