The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Election Commission for its views on a public interest litigation seeking to disqualify Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar from the Assembly, allegedly because he had concealed his criminal record while filing an election affidavit.

The public interest litigation, filed by advocate ML Sharma, sought to disqualify Kumar’s legislative membership alleging that he has concealed his criminal record while filing an election affidavit. The Election Commission has four weeks to file a reply.

The petition alleged that Kumar had a criminal case against him, where he was accused of killing local Congress leader Sitaram Singh and injuring four others ahead of a bye-election in 1991. The Janata Dal (United) leader did not disclose this pending criminal case in affidavits since 2004, except for 2012, the petition said, according to PTI.

The petition argued that in light of this, the Election Commission must cancel Kumar’s membership as per its 2002 order which had said it was mandatory for candidates to disclose criminal cases against them while filing the nomination papers for an election.

The petition had also asked that a First Information Report be filed against Nitish Kumar.