BOOTA SINGH Vs. SHER SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant, Boota Singh, the unsuccessful candidate challenged the election of Respondent 1 Sher Singh to the Punjab Legislative Assembly on certain grounds including resort to corrupt practices. The allegation in regard to corrupt practices were set out in paras 8 to 12 of the appeal. The affidavit to Form 25 was also appended to the appeal. A preliminary objection was raised that the appeal was not maintainable inasmuch as the particulars regarding the corrupt practices had not been given and the copy of the affidavit in Form 25 was defective. The learned Single Judge in the High court relying on the decisions of the High courts of Bombay and Punjab and Haryana in Purushottam v. Returning Officer and iqbal Singh v. Avtar Singh, concluded that the appeal as well as the copy of the affidavit in Form 25 did not conform to the requirement of Section 31 (3 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and, therefore, the appeal was liable to be dismissed. Reliance was also placed on the decision in Mithilesh Kumar Pandey v. Baidyanath Yadav, and Rajendra Singh v. Usha Rani, the former emphasising on the purity of elections and the latter emphasising on the respondent getting a correct copy of the document. Essentially, therefore, the view taken by the learned Single Judge was based on the earlier decision of the court reported in iqbal Singh case.

(2.) Since then there have been pronouncements of this court which were considered by this court in an elaborate judgment rendered in the case of F. A. Sapa v. Singora. In this decision, the earlier decision of this court including the one in Murarka Radhey Shyam Ram Kumar v. Roop Singh Rathore and Manphul Singh v, Surinder Singh as well as K. M. Mani v. P. J. Antony were relied on. This decision was rendered after the decision of thebombay High court came to be reported but before the decision of the High court of Punjab and Haryana in iqbal Singh case. The judgment in iqbal Singh case does not refer to the decision of this court in F. A. Sapa case We are, therefore, inclined to think that the High court omitted to consider the question regarding the impact of Section 81 (3 of the Representation of the People Act in the light of the ratio and observations of this court in F. A. Sapa case. We, therefore, think it appropriate to remit the matter to the High court for disposal after considering the impact of the decision in F. A. Sapa case as well as the earlier decision of this court referred to therein,

(3.) In the result, we set aside the impugned order, remit the matter back to the High court and direct the High court to reconsider the entire matter afresh in the light of what we have stated above. The appeal will stand disposed of accordingly with no order as to costs.