S SIVASWAMI Vs. V MALAKANNAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) At the conclusion of the hearing of this appeal arising out of an election petition filed finder Sections 80 to 83, 98, 100 (1) (d) (iii) and (iv) and Section 101 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, we passed the following order announcing the decision arrived at by us:

(2.) We now proceed to state the reasons in support of the aforesaid conclusion.

(3.) In the General Elections to the Tamil Nadu Assembly held in May 1980, the Appellant had contested for the Ilayangudi Assembly Constituency seat, and the 1st Respondent was a rival candidate sponsored by the Communist Party of India. Respondents 2, 3 and 4 had also stood for election in the same constituency as independent candidates. The polling took place on the 28th of May 1980. The counting of votes was commenced at 10.00 a. m. on the 1st of June 1980 and at 5.00 p.m. after the postal ballot votes were also counted, the result of the election was announced by the Returning Officer, declaring that the appellant was duly elected on the ground that he had secured the highest number of votes among the contesting candidates. According to the results of the counting as announced, the appellant had secured 34,437 votes and the 1st respondent had polled 34,381 votes. The other three candidates secured only a very small number of votes and had forfeited their deposits. Thus, it was only by a narrow margin of 56 votes that the appellant was declared to have won the election.