SATYA NARAIN Vs. DHUJA RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I agree with my brethren that the requisite copies of the election petition were not filed in Court within the period of limitation by the appellant. I am constrained also to agree that for this procedural fault his election petition is liable to be dismissed in view of the decision of the Court in jagat Kishore Prasad Narain Singh v. Rajindra Kumar Poddar (1971) 1 SCR 821 = (AIR 1971 SC 342). In that case Hegde J. said :

(2.) IT makes me sad to read this requiem for this election petition. Over a century ago a slip in procedure by a litigant meant denial of justice to him. "(R)ight down the nineteenth century, the choice of the wrong writ involved the loss of the action even though all the merits were with the plaintiff." Holdsworth : A History of English Law, 9, 248. Gradually however, courts subordinated procedure to the claims of justice. In Ma Shew Mya v. Maung Ho Hnaung AIR 1922 PC 249 at p. 250 Lord Buckmaster said : "All rules of court are nothing but provisions intended to secure proper administration of justice. IT is therefore essential that they should be made to serve and be subordinate to that purpose."

(3.) THIS appeal under Section 116A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (briefly the Act) is directed against the judgment and order passed by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in election petition No. 2 of 1972 dismissing it on the preliminary ground that the appellant had filed to comply with the mandatory requirement of section 81(3) of the Act inasmuch as the requisite number of spare copies of the petition for the respondents were not filed along with the petition in the High Court. It was further held by the High Court. It was further held by the High Court that the said defect could not be cured subsequently even within the period of limitation prescribed for filing the election. The High Court further held that the spare copies were actually filed beyond the period of limitation.