When corruption allegations go global amid elections, the law must stay grounded.....by KBS Sidhu

Why the Election Commission cannot cancel Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma’s candidature on the strength of Pawan Khera’s Dubai‑and‑passports dossier alone.

The explosive dossier against Assam’s CM

Sensational allegations of multi‑dimensional overseas corruption and undisclosed assets have been levelled by Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at the peak of the state’s election cycle. In a carefully choreographed press conference, Khera accused Sarma’s family of straddling multiple jurisdictions and financial systems: three allegedly “active” foreign passports in the name of the chief minister’s wife, properties in Dubai missing from election affidavits, and a United States–based corporate vehicle said to be handling a gigantic hotel investment budget. In political shorthand, the charge is stark: that a leader who swears by nationalism and transparency at home may, through his immediate family, be quietly building an offshore safety‑net abroad, beyond the full gaze of Indian regulators and Indian voters, in flagrant violation of the law.

Passports, Dubai flats and a US hotel fund

What makes this controversy especially combustible is the concrete, check‑listed nature of what has been put on the table. The allegation is that Riniki Bhuyan Sarma holds three “active” foreign passports – one said to have been issued by the UAE and valid up to 2027, another by Antigua and Barbuda valid up to 2031, and a third linked to Egypt – in obvious tension with India’s single‑citizenship regime. It is further claimed that she owns multiple properties in Dubai which do not figure in the chief minister’s election affidavit, and that the family controls a Wyoming‑registered vehicle, “Riniki Bhuyan Sarma Asset Collective LLC”, with a purported budget of about 3.46 billion US dollars (roughly ₹52,000 crore) to develop a chain of hotels in the United States.

Woven together, these claims paint a picture not just of an affluent political household, but of a financial and residential safety‑net allegedly spread across tax‑friendly jurisdictions and foreign legal systems – precisely the sort of fact‑pattern that, if proven, would raise serious questions about disclosure, beneficial ownership, and the integrity of the affidavit regime itself.

Himanta Biswa Sarma has, for his part, denied any wrongdoing in categorical terms and described the Congress dossier as a bundle of fabrications and distortions put out for electoral gain.

He has publicly announced that he and his wife will be filing criminal defamation proceedings against Pawan Khera, signalling that he intends to contest the allegations not only in the court of public opinion but also in a court of law.

That response does not, of course, answer the documentary questions raised by the opposition, but it underlines an important point for any constitutional analysis: at this stage, what exists are sharply contested claims and counter‑claims, not any formal finding by a competent authority that the chief minister or his spouse have in fact violated citizenship, anti‑corruption or disclosure laws.

What the law actually says about disqualification

Set against this backdrop, the demand that the Election Commission of India (ECI) immediately cancel Himanta Biswa Sarma’s candidature may make for powerful political theatre, but it rests on far weaker legal ground.

The distinction between allegation and adjudicated fact is not a mere technicality; it is the line that separates democratic contestation from arbitrariness. If that line is blurred, it is not just one chief minister or one constituency that will be at stake, but the ECI’s own standing as a neutral constitutional umpire.

Pawan Khera’s press conference has undeniably raised serious and specific questions. The charge is not a vague innuendo; it is presented as a dossier, complete with passport numbers, property identifiers and corporate documentation.

The Congress has framed this as an explosive cocktail of undisclosed wealth, suspect nationality status, and potential illicit financial outflows. From a political standpoint, the timing and framing are obvious: expose alleged impropriety at the top of the Assam government just as the state heads into a crucial election, and juxtapose it against the rejection of the Congress candidate’s nomination in Jalukbari constituency, which has already tilted the playing field in favour of the incumbent.

Article 324 and the Returning Officer’s limited role

Yet elections are not run on press conferences. Our electoral law and constitutional practice do not empower the ECI to treat allegations, however sensational, as if they were judicial findings. The Representation of the People Act, 1951 (RPA) lays down a specific and exhaustive set of disqualifications: convictions for certain offences, proven corrupt practices, subsisting government contracts, offices of profit and the like. What it conspicuously does not include is “serious allegations made at a press conference”, even when accompanied by what one party claims are documentary trails. To convert every high‑voltage allegation into an immediate ground for disqualification would be to replace the rule of law with the rule of televised accusation.

Under Article 324 of the Constitution, the “superintendence, direction and control” of elections are vested in the ECI. This plenary phrase has sometimes tempted legal and polical commentators and observers to believe that the Commission can, in the name of purity of elections, do virtually anything. But Article 324 does not operate in a vacuum. In the matter of nominations and scrutiny, the Constitution works through the statutory scheme of the RPA and the Conduct of Election Rules.

Within that scheme, it is the Returning Officer (RO) who is the statutory authority to receive and scrutinise nomination papers and the accompanying Form 26 affidavit. The Supreme Court, in its landmark jurisprudence on candidate disclosures, has repeatedly underlined that the RO’s remit is essentially to check whether a complete affidavit has been filed, not to conduct a roving inquiry into the truth, accuracy and veracity of every assertion made in it.

The dangers of turning ECI into a crisis court

In these cases, the Supreme Court made two critical moves. First, it insisted that the voter’s “right to know” requires full and frank disclosure: all columns in the affidavit must be duly filled, and a blank or evasive column on criminal antecedents or assets can justify rejection of the nomination. Second, and just as important, it drew a sharp line between completeness and correctness.

The RO must ensure that an affidavit in the prescribed form is filed and that it is not substantially blank; failure to file, or filing a seriously incomplete affidavit, can lead to rejection at the threshold. But questions about whether the contents are false, misleading, or suppress material facts are to be tested later, through criminal proceedings under section 125A of the RPA or via an election petition, not through a mini‑trial at the scrutiny table.

In the compressed timelines of an election, it is literally impossible — and neither the law nor the underlying objective of the voter’s “right to know” demands — that an RO should verify foreign passports, trace overseas assets, or authenticate complex corporate structures before deciding whether to accept a nomination. Between the last date of filing and the scrutiny date, there is neither the time nor the procedural apparatus to summon foreign authorities, obtain bank records, or examine witnesses. At this stage, the RO’s lawful gatekeeping role stops at insisting on a formally complete affidavit. What the law does allow the RO to do is simple but crucial: reject the nomination if the mandatory affidavit is not filed at all, or if it is left substantially incomplete in defiance of the prescribed format. The Supreme Court has never suggested that the scrutiny stage is the moment for adjudicating the veracity of each disclosure, still less for resolving fiercely contested factual disputes raised through rival political complaints.

The remedies that really exist — and when

Those now calling upon the ECI to “act now” by cancelling Himanta Biswa Sarma’s candidature are, in effect, asking it to short‑circuit this carefully calibrated architecture. They want the Commission to move from allegation to punishment in one leap, with the election calendar as the real deadline. That may be understandable in partisan terms, but from the standpoint of constitutional governance it is deeply problematic. The ECI’s powers under Article 324 are wide but not unbounded. The Supreme Court has consistently held that Article 324 is meant to fill gaps where the law is silent, not to override or ignore explicit statutory provisions. Where the RPA has spelt out the grounds on which a nomination can be rejected or a candidature cancelled, the Commission cannot invent a new category of disqualification simply because a controversy appears morally compelling.

Of course, the proper course of action for the Congress spokesperson, or the party itself, is not to demand instant decapitation of the chief minister’s candidature, but to exhaust the remedies that the law actually provides. If they truly believe that the affidavit is false or materially misleading, they can move the competent court by way of an election petition — most naturally before the Gauhati High Court — in addition to lodging detailed complaints with the Election Commission and investigative agencies. By design, however, an election petition lies after the election, not in the compressed window of scrutiny. The statutory architecture is clear: challenges based on the truthfulness of disclosures are to be adjudicated in a full‑fledged judicial proceeding, with evidence and cross‑examination, rather than at the RO’s desk or through a discretionary fiat from Nirvachan Sadan.

Criminal law, sanctions and “untested waters”

It would also be entirely open to the Congress, or indeed to any complainant, to pursue the criminal law route alongside electoral remedies. A detailed criminal complaint could be filed before the jurisdictional court invoking, among other provisions, offences of perjury for allegedly false statements on oath in the election affidavit and, where public office and public funds are implicated, the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The moment the PC Act is brought into play, however, the law introduces its own brakes in the form of section 19, which bars any court from taking cognisance of specified offences against a public servant without prior sanction from the competent authority, and section 17A, which prohibits any police enquiry, inquiry or investigation into alleged offences relatable to the discharge of official functions without previous approval. In practical terms, both the sanction under section 19 and the prior approval under section 17A would have to come from the competent government — here, acting through the Governor of Assam in relation to a serving chief minister — and these two independent sanctions would still be required irrespective of whether Sarma ceases to be chief minister after the elections or continues in office. These are politically fraught and legally untested waters, but they are nonetheless the routes that the statute itself contemplates. If the opposition is serious about taking these allegations beyond the realm of televised accusation, this is precisely what must be attempted, irrespective of who wins Jalukbari or controls Dispur.

Why the ECI must resist the temptation

There is also an important point about symmetry and fairness. In Jalukbari, the Congress candidate’s nomination has already been rejected on technical grounds, leaving Himanta Biswa Sarma in a commanding position. If the Commission were now to strike down his candidature in response to a last‑minute exposé, it would effectively decide the constituency’s fate from Delhi rather than through the ballot box. Even if a court later restored the candidature or set aside the Commission’s action, the damage to the perceived impartiality of the institution would be hard to undo. High‑profile interventions must, therefore, rest on a rock‑solid legal and evidentiary foundation, not on the shifting sands of political controversy.

In the long run, the real reform we need is not for the Commission to summarily cancel candidatures on the basis of allegations, but for Parliament to strengthen the legal consequences of filing false affidavits, hiding beneficial ownership, and routing money through opaque foreign structures. Fast‑track mechanisms for adjudicating such cases before elections, mandatory and verifiable real‑time disclosures from regulators, and stronger international cooperation on beneficial ownership would all do more to cleanse public life than press‑driven demands for instant disqualification.

For now, the law draws a clear line: allegations, no matter how grave, must be tested before they are treated as facts. To ask the Election Commission to ignore that line is to invite it to act outside the law in the name of morality.

In a constitutional democracy, that is a temptation the Commission must resist — not for the sake of any one politician, but for the sake of its own credibility, and ultimately, for the integrity of the electoral process itself. Equally, it would be both politically and morally incumbent upon the Congress Party to pursue, in the post‑election scenario, every plausible legal remedy it has itself invoked — from an election petition to carefully framed criminal proceedings — rather than be seen and dismissed as a “pussy cat” that indulges in petty, irresponsible shoot‑and‑scoot antics.

April 6, 2026