BALARAM Vs. ARAVINDAKSHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In the General Election for the Kerala State Legislative Assembly for which poll was taken on 23-3-1987 the petitioner and respondents 1 to 12 were the contesting candidates (or the seat in the Kunnamkulam Assembly Constituency No. 56. The main contest was between the petitioner who was a candidate of the Indian National Congress (1) and the first respondent sponsored by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which respectively were allies of the United Democratic Front and the Left Democratic Front. , Petitioner was defeated by the first respondent by a margin of 409 votes. Respondents 2 to 11 got only nominal votes.

(2.) Petitioner wants declaration of the election of the first respondent void and to have him declared elected. There is no allegation of any corrupt practice. The grounds alleged are mainly (1) The counting ball was so small to accommodate the large crowd making it impossible for the counting staff to do their work correctly and the counting agents to oversee sorting and counting. (2) This was the only constituency where counting lasted till 3 a.m. of the next day, namely, 25-3-1987. By 6 or 7 p.m. on 24-3-1987 the news that the Left Democratic Front bad obtained majority in the Assembly came. This had adverse effect on the petitioner as several of the counting staff who owed their allegiance to the Left Democratic Front took advantage of the confusion to help the first respondent in counting. (3) On account of the confusion and overcrowding the counting agents of the petitioner could point out and get rectified only some instances of wrong counting. Exhaustion of the counting staff also resulted in mistakes. (5) The ballot papers happened to be printed in a misleading fashion which was most disadvantageous to the petitioner. (6) This resulted in more than 600 of the votes polled in favour of the petitioner, though near his symbol, being on the shaded area immediately to the right of his symbol. All those votes were rejected for that reason wrongly, and (7) There were large number of errors in sorting and counting. The prayer seems to be for a partial recount of the 600 and odd votes alleged to be illegally rejected and if necessary to have a general recount also. There is the further allegation that the prayer for recount was also illegally rejected.

(3.) Before taking evidence the first respondent wanted the election petition to be dismissed on three preliminary points. They are (1) The petition and the security deposits were out of time. (2) The petition does not contain a concise statement of the material facts on which the petitioner relies and therefore the pleadings will have to be struck out under O.6 R.16 of the Code of Civil Procedure as no cause of action is made out, and (3) Many of the statements in the petition are barred by law and hence the petition has to be rejected under O.7 R.11 CPC. On these three points both sides addressed elaborate arguments.