BANDIT SINGH Vs. PRITAM SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by special leave from the judgment of the Punjab High Court. In the general election held in 1962 for Parliament (House of the People), the appellant was elected from the Sangrur parliamentary constituency. Pritam Singh respondent was also one of the contesting candidates but lost in the election. Thereupon he filed an election petition against the appellant challenging his election on a number of grounds. In the present appeal we are only concerned with one ground, and that was that the nomination papers of one of the candidates for the election, namely, Wazir Singh, had been rejected improperly by the returning officer. Wazir Singh had filed three nomination papers; with one of them he had attached a copy of a part of the electoral roll. He attached no such copy with the other two nomination papers. When the nomination papers were being scrutinised, an objection was taken to the validity of the nomination papers. The returning officer first took up the nomination paper with which a copy of part of the roll had been filed and rejected it on the ground that the name of the parliamentary constituency and the name of the village and the assembly constituency and the part number of the electoral roll of the candidate was not mentioned and also because the name of the parliamentary constituency (House of the People) of the proposer was not given. After rejecting this nomination paper, the returning officer took up the other two nomination papers and rejected them on the ground that a copy of the electoral roll of the constituency concerned or of the relevant part thereof or a certified copy of the relevant entries had not been filed along with these nomination papers. It may be added that the returning officer refused to look into the copy of the part of the roll which Wazir Singh had filed along with his nomination paper which the returning officer had already rejected before he took up the other nomination papers.

(2.) The main contention of respondent Pritam Singh in the election petition was that the returning officer was wrong in not looking into the copy of the part of the roll which had been filed with the first nomination paper of Wazir Singh and that merely because that nomination paper had been rejected, the returning officer was not precluded from looking into the copy of the part of the roll which had been produced with that nomination paper for the purpose of scrutiny of the other two nomination papers. The appellant on the other hand contended that the nomination papers had been rightly rejected and this contention was based on three points raised on his behalf, namely - (I) that a copy of the electoral roll of that constituency or a relevant part thereof or a certified copy of the relevant entries of such roll should have been produced with each nomination paper separately; (ii) in any case the copy produced should have been of the parliamentary constituency and not of the assembly constituency; and (iii) that the copy produced of the part of the roll was not a complete copy of the part and therefore was not a compliance with the requirements of S. 38 (5) of the Representation of the People Act, No. 43 of 1951, (hereinafter referred to as the Act).

(3.) The Election Tribunal seems to have taken the view that the copy filed along with the first nomination paper could not be looked into when the returning officer came to scrutinise the other nomination papers, even if it might be assumed to be a copy of the parliamentary electoral roll. It further held that even if the copy could be looked into, it was not a complete copy and therefore there was no compliance with S. 38 (5) of the Act and in consequence the Tribunal held that the returning officer was justified in rejecting the nomination papers notwithstanding the provisions of S. 36 (4) of the Act.