SHIVAJIRAO B PATIL KAWEKAR Vs. VILASRAO D DESHMUKH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal under Section 116-A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (hereinafter RPA, for short) preferred by a candidate successful at the election but against whom an election petition filed by a candidate who had lost at the election has been allowed by the High Court on the ground of commission of corrupt practices as defined in sub-sections (3A) and (4) of Section 123 of the RPA. For the sake of convenience the parties will be referred to as they are arrayed before this Court in this appeal, that is to say, Vilasrao Dagdojirao Deshmukh who had filed the election petition and is arrayed as respondent in this appeal shall be referred to as the respondent and Shivajirao Balwantrao Patil Kawekar who was arrayed as defendant/respondent before the High Court and is appellant before us shall be referred to as the appellant.

(2.) Elections to the Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly from 206 Latur Assembly Constituency took place on 9-2-1995. The respondent was a candidate sponsored by Congress (I). The appellant was sponsored by Janta Dal. Result of the election was declared on 12-3-1995. The respondent got 79077 votes while the appellant secured 1,12,901 votes. The appellant was thus declared elected.

(3.) The election petition alleged commission of several corrupt practices. As many as 28 issues were framed by the learned designated Election Judge based on the pleadings of the parties. As the judgment under appeal shows the learned designated Election Judge has found issues numbers 6 to 10 and 11 to 15 proved. On the rest of the issues the findings recorded are in the negative. The subject-matter of this appeal are the affirmative findings recorded on issues numbers 6 to 15. The finding on issue No. 3 is also subject-matter of challenge laid by the appellant before us. These issues are extracted and reproduced hereunder :-