(With inputs from agencies)

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a notice to Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on a petition seeking annulment of his election to the assembly as he had allegedly not made a full disclosure of criminal cases pending against him in the affidavit filed along with nomination form.A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph sought response of the chief minister on an appeal filed against a Bombay high court order.The Bombay high court had dismissed the plea of one Satish Ukey seeking annulment of Fadanavis's election to the Maharashtra assembly on the ground of alleged non-disclosure of all pending criminal cases against him.The apex court was hearing an appeal of Ukey against the high court order.The decision came months after a session court's notice in response to a criminal revision application, filed by Ukey, under Section 397 of CrPC, challenging a previous order of the court where it had disposed of the application.The applicant had alleged that Fadnavis while submitting his nomination from South West assembly constituency in 2009 and 2014 had allegedly suppressed the information about two pending criminal cases against him.The petitioner had contended that Fadnavis's act is a clear violation of Section 125-A of Representation of People's Act, 1951.The two cases were filed against Fadnavis in 1996 and 1998 having allegations of cheating and forgery, and the MLA had furnished PR bond of Rs3,000 in one of them, according to the petitioner. It included a regular criminal case (No. 343/2003) filed by Madanlal Parate against Shashikant Hastak where Fadnavis was the fourth respondent.Earlier in the year, the state government, in response to a report, had said that there are no cases against the CM."These cases were from the election affidavit filed during the 2014 assembly elections. At present (in 2018), there is no case pending against the Maharashtra chief minister,” said a senior official from the CMO.