RAJENDRA PRASAD JAIN Vs. SHEEL BHADRA YAJEE ANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In 1964, there were eight vacancies in the Rajya Sabha for which members had to be elected from the constituency of the Legislative Assembly of Bihar. The election was to be held on 26the March, 1964. It appears that the Congress Party put up 6 candidates out of the total of 13 candidates who were nominated for these eight vacancies. Two of the candidates withdrew after scrutiny of nomination papers and, consequently, for the actual election there were 6 Congress candidates and 5 others. Amongst these 5 others was the appellant Rajendra Prasad Jain who was standing as an independent candidate. One of the Congress candidates was respondent Sheel Bhadra Yajee. At the election, Rajendra Prasad Jain was declared as one of the elected candidates, while respondent Sheel Bhadra Yajee was unsuccessful. Respondent No. 1, Sheel Bhadra Yajee, then filed an election petition challenging the election of the appellant to the Rajya Sabha. The main ground for challenge was that the appellant had committed the corrupt practice of bribery or offer of bribery in order to secure his election. In the election petition as originally filed, Schedule I contained the names of five persons to whom, it was alleged, bribe had actually been paid by the appellant. Schedule II contained the names of five persons to whom bribe had been offered by the appellant. By a subsequent amendment, three fresh names were added in Schedule I and five in Schedule II. The amendment having been allowed by the Election Tribunal, the petition, at the stage of the trial, contained allegations of payment of bribe to eight persons and of offer of bribe to ten persons. In the actual trial however, evidence was not tendered in respect of some of these allegations. The election Tribunal, after full trial of the petition, held that respondent No. 1 had succeeded in proving that the appellant had given bribes to three of the persons mentioned in Schedule I and had offered bribe to four persons mentioned in Schedule II. The appellant appealed to the High Court at Patna. In the High Court, when the appeal was heard by a Division Bench, one member Mahapatra, J., held that none of the allegations of payment of bribe or of offer of bribe had been proved and was of the view that the appeal should be allowed and the election petition dismissed. The other member, Ramratna Singh, J., agreed with Mahapatra, J., with regard to the three instances of giving bribe to the three persons mentioned in Schedule I and also with regard to the offer of bribe to two of the persons mentioned in Sch. II. With regard to two instances of offer of bribe in Schedule II, he disagreed with Mahapatra, J., and upheld the decision of the Election Tribunal. The two persons in whose cases the offer of bribe was held proved by Ramratna Singh, J., were Shah Mustaq Ahmad and Ram Narain Choudhary who were both members of the Bihar Legislative Assembly and belonged to the Congress Party. Owing to this difference of opinion, the two learned Judges directed that the case may be placed before the Hon'ble Chief Justice for reference of the point of difference to another Bench under Article 28 of the Letters Patent. Under the directions of the Chief Justice, the appeal came up before U. N. Sinha, J., who, in both cases, agreed with the view taken by Ramratna Singh, J., and, consequently, in accordance with the view of the majority, the Court ultimately dismissed the appeal holding that the offer of bribe by the appellant to Shah Mustaq Ahmad and Ram Narain Choudhary had been proved. The appellant has now come up in appeal to this Court under certificate granted by the High Court at Patna against this judgment of that Court.

(2.) In this appeal, three points were urged by Mr. Ved Vyas, learned counsel for the appellant. The first question of law raised was that the Division Bench of the Patna High Court, which first heard the appeal made a direction that the case is to be placed before the Chief Justice for reference of the point of difference to another "Bench" under Art. 28 of the Letters Patent and, consequently, the reference made subsequently by the Chief Justice to a single Judge was not competent. It was urged that the use of the expression "another Bench" in the referring order meant that the case had to be laid by the Chief Justice before a Bench of two or more Judges and not before a single Judge. There are two reasons why, in our opinion, this submission has no force. The first is that the word "Bench" used in the referring order cannot be interpreted as necessarily indicating that the case must be laid before two or more Judges. In this connection, the language of Rule 1 (xi) and R. 3 of Chapter II of the Rules of the High Court at Patna is significant. Under R. 1 (xi), a case under the Indian Companies Act is to be heard by a single Judge; and R. 3 indicates the nature of one of the orders which can be passed by a Bench hearing the case under R. 1 (xi). Thus, in R. 3 of the Rules of the High Court at Patna itself a single Judge is referred to as a Bench. In fact, it is well known that, when referring to Judges of the High Court sitting to decide a case, the expressions frequently used are Single Bench and Division Bench. The word "Bench" used in the referring order, even in its ordinary connotation, would, therefore, include a single Judge. The second aspect is that the order of reference mentions that the case is to be placed for reference under Art. 28 of the Letters Patent. Article 28 of the Letters Patent lays down that, in such circumstances, the case is to be referred to one or more of the other Judges of the High Court. This reference to Art. 28 of the Letters Patent also thus clarifies that under the order of reference made by the Division Bench which first heard the appeal, the case was intended to be placed before the Chief Justice for reference to one or more of the other Judges of the Court. Further under the Rules of the High Court at Patna, the Chief Justice had the discretion to decide whether a case placed before him under Art. 28 of the Letters Patent should be heard by one Judge or more Judges than one, and this power of the Chief Justice was actually exercised when, in this case, he directed that the case be laid before U. N. Sinha, J. The reference to U. N. Sinha, J. and his decision were, therefore, not incompetent.

(3.) The second point urged by learned counsel was that the finding recorded by the High Court of Patna that the two instances of offer of bribe by the appellant to Shah Mustaq Ahmad and Ram Narain Choudhary wore proved was incorrect. He urged that we should go into the merits of this finding on the ground that at least one of the Judges who recorded that finding, viz., Ramratna Singh, J., had misread evidence and had taken into consideration irrelevant matters. He pointed out to us that Ramratna Singh J., had held at page No. 454 of the Paper-book that "it is true that page No. W. 2 did not disclose the names of P. Ws. 9 and 14, to Yajee before September or October, 1964, but the non-disclosure of the names of persons to whom he had spoken about the incident when the first talk with Yajee took place is not material." P. W. 2 was Ram Narain Choudhary who was one of the persons to whom bribe was alleged to have been offered by the appellant, and P. Ws. 9 and 14 were two persons examined to corroborate him. Respondent Yajee, in the trial of the election petition, did not disclose the names of P. Ws. 9 and 14, to the Court when he gave the first list of his witnesses in October, 1964, and it was from this circumstance that the learned Judge drew the inference that the names of these two persons had not been disclosed by P.W. 2 to respondent Yajee before September or October, 1964. Learned counsel pointed out that Yajee had admitted that the names of these two witnesses had been disclosed to him in September, 1964. It, however, appears that it cannot be held that the learned Judge committed an error of misreading evidence if he chose not to rely on this admission of Yajee and preferred the evidence which showed that the names of these two witnesses had not been disclosed to him before September or October, 1964. This may be at best a question as to the weight to be attached to different pieces of evidence and cannot be held to be an instance of misreading of evidence.