HARSUKH LAL Vs. SARNAM SINGH AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition filed by Harsukh Lal challenges an order passed by the S.D.O., Kaimganj, on 27.0.1961, rejecting the election petition which he filed under Section 12G of the Panchayat Raj Act against the election of Sarnam Singh (opposite party No. 1; as Pradhan of a certain Gaon Sabha.

(2.) THE contention put forward by the Petitioner in his election petition (and repeated in the present petition) is that Sarnam Singh was disqualified from holding the post of Pradhan under Section 5A(h) of the Panchayat Raj Act, because he had been convicted of an offence involving moral turpitude . The certified copy of the judgment which has been filed proves that Sarnam Singh was convicted on 20.10.1947 by the Sessions Judge of Farrukhabad for offences under Sections 302/149, 307/149 and 148, IPC and was sentenced to transportation for life. It is not clear whether this sentence was reduced in appeal or whether Samara Singh secured an early release from jail on account of remissions; but he was obviously out of jail by 1960, when he stood for election. What ever may have happened to the sentence, however, there is no suggestion that any of the convictions recorded by the Sessions Judge were set aside or modified in appeal.

(3.) 'Turpitude' is a word of high emotional significance, suggesting conduct of such depravity as to excite feelings of disgust and contempt. The crime of simple hurt does not normally provoke any such reaction and consequently cannot be classed as an offence involving moral turpitude; and it seems to me that there is no logical reason why the offence of murder, which in essence is only an aggravated form of hurt, should be held necessarily to involve moral turpitude. I am willing to concede that murders which are premeditated and planned in cold blood, those which are perpetrated for some base motive and those which are carried out with extreme ferocity and cruelty do involve moral turpitude, as they naturally evoke a spontaneous feeling of repulsion and condemnation in the mind. But a murder committed in the heat of a fight or in response to serious provocation could hardly be placed in the same category.