RAMCHARAN Vs. STATE OF M.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner before this court has filed this present petition being aggrieved by the order dated 27-11-2017 passed by the Sub-Divisional Officer (Revenue) Khilchipur-Jeerapur, District Rajgarh.

(2.) The facts of the case reveal that the petitioner before this court participated in the election for the post of 'Sarpanch' and the election took place on 09-02-2015. The petitioner in respect of election in question submitted an affidavit on 07-01-2014 stating that he has attained the age of 21 years and based upon his affidavit he was permitted to contest the election. Later on, election petition was preferred by the respondent No.4 under section 122 of the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj Avam Gram Swaraj Adhiniyam, 1993 and the election petition was dismissed by order dated 18-01-2016. The reasoning assigned in the order reflects that the Presiding Officer has dismissed the election petition on the ground that the objection was not raised at the time the nomination paper was submitted. The matter has earlier traveled to this court and this court by an order dated 05-10-2017 passed in Writ Petition No. 1169/2016 has passed the following order:-

(3.) Thereafter, the Sub-Divisional Officer (Revenue) in light of the aforesaid judgment has passed the impugned order setting aside the election. This court in the earlier round of litigation has categorically held that in the election petition the only objection raised was that the returned candidate was qualified to contest the election as he was less than 21 years of age. Meaning thereby, the issue was crystallised by this court and the matter was remanded back to the Sub-Divisional Officer to decide the election petition within a period of thirty days. The petition has been decided within thirty days. Undisputed facts of the case reveal that the date of birth of the petitioner was mentioned in the Scholar Register as 04-03-1994, in the VIII Class Certificate Exhibit-P-11 it was mentioned as 04-03- 1994 and the petitioner has himself submitted an application for inclusion of his name in the voter list and in the application date of birth was mentioned as 04-03-1994. The petitioner by declaring the date of birth as 04-03-1994 has became a voter. Exhibit-P14 was the document which was brought before the Sub-Divisional Officer. Thus, there were three documents produced before the Sub-Divisional Officer i.e. VIII class certificate Exhibit-P-11, inclusion of voter list Exhibit-P-14 and the Scholar register Exhibit-P-17, and in all the three documents the date of birth was mentioned as 04-03-1994. The petitioner came up with a case that he has later on submitted an affidavit for correction of his date of birth and based upon the affidavit submitted by the petitioner his date of birth was corrected to 03-08-1993 and the petitioner based upon his affidavit and the consequential correction of date of birth has stated before the Sub-Divisional Officer (Revenue) that he was 21 years of age.