CHANDA SINGH Vs. CHOUDHARY SHIV RAM VERMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This election appeal is filed by the defeated candidate. set up by the Indian National Congress, challenging the election of the 1st respondent, the candidate of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, after an unsuccessful election petition. The constituency is Nilokheri, in Haryana State and the margin of difference was just 366 votes. The High Court negatived the petitioner's case (supra) and hence the appeal.

(2.) The facts of this case, along the customary course. are that the general elections to the Haryana Legislative Assembly including for the Nilokheri constituency, were held in March l972. Although ten persons filed nominations here, the contenders with muscles were the Congress and Jan Sangh candidates, victory according to the Returning Officers verdict going to the latter but given a close numerical chase by the former. (A vaguely worded application for recount on the spot was rebuffed and later a petition was filed in the case with more specificity to conform to the prescriptions gathered from the rulings of this Court). An election petition setting out the common plurality of grounds, was in due course filed some of which were discreetly abandoned at the trial and all of which were, on merits, negatived by the High Court. Before us, the fourfold issues pressed covered:(a) character assassination of the appellant; (b) communal appeal to influence the electorate; (c) bribery of some candidates, one a harijan, and another a barber by birth (an Indian caste phenomenon) and a third, a refugee from West Punjab - the game being to induce them to mock-contest and, by their caste appeal, split the solid blocks of traditionally Congress votes; (d) illegal and erroneous counting of votes fracturing the sure success of the appellant followed by the unjust refusal of a recount which would have revealed the real result.

(3.) We will proceed to examine each limb of this complex of challenges, although the highlight of Shri Bhandare's submissions was the justice and right of his demand for a recount, so we will finish with that plea first.