VALLURI NARAYANA MURTHY Vs. SANGITA VENKATA REDDY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner and R-1 to R-7 contested from 52, Alamuru Assembly Constituency in the General Elections held for Andhra Pradesh State Legislative Assembly on 22-11-89. R-1 secured 52,687 votes while the petitioner got 51,709 votes and the votes secured by R-2 to R-7 are in hundreds only. R-l was declared elected. He got majority of 978 votes over that of the petitioner.

(2.) The petitioner filed this E.P. by alleging various irregularities which according to him materially affected the result of the election of R-l. On the basis of the pleadings in this Election Petition and the Recrimination Petition, the following issues were framed:

(3.) Issue No.1: In para 6 of the election petition it was alleged that there had been no proper account of the ballot papers issued and the details of ballot papers which are not accounted for as entered in Form 16 has been given in Annexure-I and the failure to account for the total number of ballot papers along with other circumstances in the case materially affected the result of the election petition. It was further, alleged therein that some of the 16 forms submitted by the Presiding Officers are manipulated and concocted. The alleged discrepancies as per Annexure-I were explained in detail in para 4 of the written statement of R-1, and in support of the same, Ex.B-1 the notice referring to missing numbers and defective ballot papers in regard to this constituency for 1989 assembly elections was filed. In view of the said material, in fairness to the learned counsel for the election petitioner, it has to be stated that it was submitted for the petitioner that there is no material to support the allegations which are the basis for this issue. Hence this issue is held against the petitioner. Issues 2 and 3 are also not pressed and hence they are held against the petitioner.