A petition has been filed against Nitish Kumar for allegedly concealing a case in his election affidavit.
The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Election Commission's response on a petition seeking its view on the disqualification of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as a member of the state Legislative Council.
A Delhi-based lawyer has filed a petition alleging that the Janata Dal United (JD-U) chief allegedly concealed a pending criminal case against him in his election affidavits since 2004, except for 2012.
ML Sharma, who filed the petition, alleged that an FIR was registered against Mr Kumar for killing a local Congress leader Sitaram Singh, and injuring four others ahead of Lok Sabha by-election to the Barh constituency in 1991. But this information was not disclosed in the affidavits filed before the poll body.
Nitish Kumar, meanwhile, has welcomed the move. "It's good that Supreme Court has referred the matter to the Election Commission. I have done whatever was according to the guidelines of the Election Commission," he said.
Mr Sharma has also been asked to hand over a copy of his petition to the Election Commission.
The court will take up the case after four weeks.
In July, after his acrimonious split with Nitish Kumar in Bihar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad had alleged that the JD-U leader had "
murder-taint" on his hands. "Nitish Kumar faced charges worse than corruption, we knew it. Nitish Kumar has murder-taint on him," the RJD leader had said.