Image Source: livelaw.in The honorable Supreme Court held that the casting of vote by a lawmaker prior to his conviction is valid. The chief Justice of India observed that holding a lawmaker disqualified from casting his vote is unreasonable interference with his fundamental right to vote and is also against the basic criminal principle that ' a person is innocent until proven guilty'. Since at that time he was not proven guilty hence his vote was valid. The issue related to the the vote cast by then Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MLA Amit Kumar Mahto in 2018 Rajya Sabha election at 9.15am prior to his conviction and sentence at 2.30pm on March 23 in a case relating to unlawful assembly, mischief etc. The case was filed by Pradeep Kumar Sonthalia the BJP candidate lost his election by single vote. But the court did not hold the vote invalid. Case Details Title : Pradeep Kumar Sonthalia v Dhiraj Prasad Sahu and another Coram : CJI SA Bobde, Justices V Ramasubramanian and AS Bopanna Appearances : Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi and K V Vishwanathan for the appellant; Senior Advocate Dr AM Singhvi for the respondnet.