BRIJ MOHAN Vs. SAT PAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by the respondent in Election Petn. No. 7 of 1982 on the file of the Punjab and Haryana High Court is directed against the judgment of a learned single Judge declaring the appellant's election from the Jind constituency of the Haryana Legislative Assembly as void on the ground that the nomination paper of a candidate Dog Ram was improperly rejected. The last date for filing nomination papers was 24-4-1982, and in the scrutiny made on 26-4-1982 nomination papers of two candidates including Dog Ram were rejected by the Returning Officer. The principal contest was between one Mange Ram, a Congress (1) candidate and the appellant, an independent candidate who had been set up by the Lok Dal party. The polling was on 19-5-1982 and after the counting was made on 20-5-1982 the appellant was declared elected from the Jind constituency.

(2.) The election petition was filed by, the respondent, Sat Pal, an elector in the Jind constituency. His case in the election petition was that Dog Ram was registered as an elector at Serial No. 177 and house No. 57 in part 39 of the electoral roll of the Jind constituency. Ram Partap who proposed Dog Ram as a candidate, was registered as elector at Serial No. 313 and house No. 6 in part 39 of the same constituency. The name of Dog Ram and his postal address were correctly given in the nomination paper. But the part of the electoral roll was mentioned as 57 instead of 39 by an inadvertent mistake committed by the person who filed the nomination paper. Similarly, in the case of the proposer Ram Partap, the serial number of the elector and the number of the constituency were given correctly but the number of It is house was wrongly entered in the column meant for the part of the electoral roll. These inaccuracies in the nomination paper were technical in nature and should have been rectified by the Returning Officer at the time of scrutiny. No other candidate or proposer objected to the acceptance of the nomination paper of Dog Ram but the Returning Officer on his own rejected the nomination paper by the following order :

(3.) The appellant contested the election petition contending that the Returning Officer compared 'the admittedly inaccurate particulars given in the nomination paper with those entered in the part of the voters' list mentioned in the nomination paper and found them to be incorrect and asked Dog Ram to, show the names of himself and his proposer Ram Partap in the electoral rolls and that as the candidate was unable to do so he rejected the nomination paper and was right in doing so.