D MURALIDHAR REDDY Vs. PAGA PULLA REDDY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against the judgment of the Election Tribunal, Hyderabad, setting aside the election of the appellant, who was returned to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly in the general elections held in February 1962 from the Alampur Constituency (Mahaboobnagar District).

(2.) The scat was contested by three candidates including the appellant and the respondents but the contest was keen between the appellant and the respondent. The polling was field on 22-2-1962. The appellant obtained 20,715 valid votes as against his nearest rival, the respondent, who secured 20,548 valid votes, the margin between the two being only 167.

(3.) The respondent presented a petition under Section 81 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 challenging Lie validity of this election and for a declaration that he was duly elected inter alia on the ground that the appellant got a drama "Satya Harischandra" enacted on the 15/02/1962, a week before the polling day, A one of the villages within this constituency, to induce the electors to cast their votes in his favour, that he procured a lorry and hired bullock-carts for conveying the voters to some of the polling booths at Alampur and that he got a well for drinking water dug for the use of the Harijans of Budamarsu through the President of the Panchayat Samithi of Manopad with the object of influencing those voters all of which constitute corrupt practices within the terms of Section 123(1)(b) of the Representation of the People Act and that he arranged meetings of his election campaign at several places some of which were addressed by the then Chief Minister, within twenty four hours before the commencement of the poll and this violated the provisions of Section 126 of the aforesaid Act.