The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the May 12 Gujarat High Court judgment setting aside the election of education and law minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama for electoral malpractice, deciding to hear the matter at an yet-to-be-fixed later date.

The BJP’s Chudasama, the first cabinet minister in the country to be handed such a punishment over poll-related misconduct, had appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay on the order on the ground that he can stay on in office during the Covid crisis.

The influential minister claimed before the bench of Justices M. Shantnagoudar and R. Subhash Reddy that his election had been set aside erroneously and there had been no irregularity in the counting of votes during the 2017 Assembly elections.

Senior advocates Harish Salve and Neeraj Kishan Kaul represented Chudasama in the Supreme Court. Ashwin Rathod, the Congress candidate against Chudasama in the Dholka constituency who had moved the high court, was represented in the apex court by senior advocate Kapil Sibal.

Sibal pleaded with the top court against a stay on the high court order. The Supreme Court, however, stayed the order and decided to hear the matter at length at a later date. Till the matter is disposed of, Chudasama can continue as minister.

Rathod had contended in the high court that 429 postal ballots had been arbitrarily cancelled by the polling officer to declare the BJP’s Chudasama victorious by 327 votes.