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The Supreme Court of India issued a show cause notice to Kalyan Chaubey for failing to appear before the Calcutta High Court in an election petition filed by himself, asking why he shouldn’t be relieved of the AIFF President and the IOA Joint Secretary posts. As per the court, the 47-year-old is delaying court orders wilfully, and non-bailable warrants will be issued if he doesn’t appear before the Calcutta High Court.
Notably, Kalyan Chaubey, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, had filed an election petition against Sadhan Pande, the now-deceased leader of the Trinamool Congress, challenging his election from the Maniktala constituency in the West Bengal Assembly election of 2021. But, after Kalyan Chaubey didn’t appear before the Calcutta High Court for a hearing, a petition was filed against him in the Supreme Court, alleging that he was not present and cooperating with the election petition filed by him.
The petition filed against Kalyan Chaubey came from three residents of the Maniktala constituency, who raised a grievance about their seat going unrepresented for years. During the petition hearing, the Supreme Court said, as per Bar and Bench, “We are satisfied that he (Kalyan Chaubey) is defying court orders wilfully. Non-bailable warrants will be issued if he does not remain present before the High Court.”
In the show cause notice issued to Kalyan Chaubey, the Supreme Court sought an explanation from him about why he shouldn’t be relieved from his responsibilities as the President of AIFF and the Joint Secretary of the IOA, which will allow him to fully concentrate on the election petition filed with the Calcutta High Court. The Supreme Court said, “We are satisfied that respondent number is 3 (Kalyan Chaubey) is adopting every possible delaying tactic. His counsels are also colluding and seeking adjournments on one pretext or the other.”
“We, therefore, issue show cause notice to respondent number 3 that in order to expedite the election petition to be taken on a day-to-day basis,” they added.