ROHITESWAR SAIKIA Vs. TONU KONWAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this petition, the petitioner has prayed for striking out pleading contained in paras 4 to 23, 29, 30, 32, 34, 42, 43, 44 and 45 of the election petition on the ground that allegations in those paras do not disclose cause of action and pleading contained in paras 39,40, 41 and 47 have not been verified.

(2.) It is settled that on a combined reading of Ss. 81, 83, 86 and 87 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (Act 43 of 1951), for short the "Act", those paragraphs of the election petition which do not disclose any cause of action are liable to be struck out under O.6, R. 15, CPC as the Court is empowered at any stage of the proceedings to strike out or delete pleading which is unnecessary, scandalous, frivolous or vexatious, or which may tend to prejudice, embarras or delay the fair trial of the petition, or which otherwise an abuse of the process of the Court. However, a pleading has to be read as a whole to ascertain its true import. It is not permissible to cull out a sentence or a passage and read it out of the context, in isolation. In other word, it is not right to pick up one or two words out of the context and to draw inferences therefrom.

(3.) The Act is a complete and self-contained Code. Under the Act an election can be questioned only on the grounds as contained in S.100. Section 83 provides that an election petition shall contain a concise statement of material facts and shall set forth full particulars or corrupt practice. The pleadings are regulated by S.83, and it makes it obligatory on the election petitioner to give the requisite facts, details and the particulars of each corrupt practice with a full statement with exactness as possible. The provisions under Section 83 are mandatory. Therefore, if material facts constituting the cause of action, or corrupt practice, are not averred, then no ground is made out for challenging the election, and if the election petition fails to make a ground provided u/s. 100, it must fail.