Delhi court reserves order on complaint against Irani

New Delhi: A court here on Thursday reserved its order on a private complaint that sought action against Union minister Smriti Irani for allegedly claiming false educational qualifications in her election affidavits.

Metropolitan Magistrate Harvinder Singh fixed October 1 for pronouncing the order on the private complaint of Ahmer Khan, who accused Irani of submitting varying details about her educational qualifications in her three affidavits filed before the Election Commission for the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha polls held in 2004, 2011 and 2014.

Khan, who filed the complaint in April last year, sought action against Irani on the charge of lying on oath about her educational qualifications.

His counsels K.K. Manan and Anjali Rajput alleged that the BJP leader declared herself to be a 1996 batch graduate from Delhi University’s School of Correspondence in her affidavit filed for the 2004 Lok Sabha election from Delhi’s Chandni Chowk constituency.

But in her affidavit for the 2014 Lok Sabha election, when she contested from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, she allegedly said she did her B.Com. (Part I) in 1994 from Delhi University’s School of Open Learning.

Khan said that in yet another affidavit filed on July 11, 2011 for the Rajya Sabha election from Gujarat, she affirmed her highest educational qualification was B.Com (Part I) from Delhi University’s School of Correspondence.