MICHAEL VINCENT LOBO Vs. JOSEPH ROBERT SEQUEIRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The original respondent being the successful candidate at the last assembly elections whose election has been challenged by the petitioner seeks a summary rejection/dismissal of the Election Petition under Section 83 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 read with Order VII, Rule 11(a) and (d) CPC, 1908 or principles analogous thereto.

(2.) The parties would hereinafter be referred to as the applicant and the respondent for brevity's sake.

(3.) The applicant sought for a summary dismissal of the Election Petition for failure to disclose a cause of action inasmuch as in terms of Section 83 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951("Act", for short hereinafter), an Election Petition was required to contain a concise statement of material facts upon which the petitioner relied and also to set forth full particulars of any corrupt practice that the petitioner alleges, including as full a statement as possible of the names of the parties alleged to have committed such corrupt practice and date and place of such corrupt practice. The petition neither contained a statement of material facts nor did it set out any particulars whatsoever of the corrupt practices, which are alleged in the petition. One of the grounds canvassed for assailing the election of the applicant was that the Returning Officer had allegedly acted with favourable bias towards the applicant and arbitrarily refused to order a recount of the votes polled in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) of all the booths of the 08-Calangute Constituency and also refused to compare the same with the paper trail votes. There was a gross mismatch between the total number of votes polled and the votes found recorded in the EVMs in all the booths of the Calangute Constituency.