The Bombay High Court has refused to grant any relief to Nawab Malik for voting in the Rajya Sabha elections for the time being.

Mumbai:

The Bombay High Court has refused to grant any relief to Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik for voting in the Rajya Sabha elections for the time being.

Nawab Malik's lawyer Amit Desai had said that he is not demanding bail, but is demanding the right to vote.

He had said that this voting is important in the current environment.

Desai said he would not have sought permission to vote had the fight not been close, but the court refused to grant relief to him.

However, in the afternoon session, the petition will be heard again regarding the new demand.

The second minister of the state, Anil Deshmukh, has also filed his petition in the High Court through the jail.

He has also sought exemption to vote in the Rajya Sabha elections as an interim relief, but it is believed that he is not likely to get relief like Malik.

Deshmukh and Malik are currently in jail in connection with various money laundering cases being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The two had filed an application for temporary bail before Special Judge RN Rokade last week.

After hearing the arguments of all the parties, the court had refused to grant temporary bail on Thursday.


The ED had opposed his petitions, saying that prisoners did not have the right to vote under the Representation of the People Act. Deshmukh was arrested by the ED in November 2021 in a money laundering case.

Malik was arrested by the ED on February 23 this year in connection with its probe into a money laundering case involving the activities of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim and his associates.