JAGDISH NAYAR Vs. UDAI BHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HASANPUR is an Assembly Constituency (Reserve). The Election Commission of India had issued the programme for holding elections in the State of Haryana including the abovesaid assembly constituency. The details of the programme are as under :

(2.) THE petitioner as well as respondents No. 1 to 9 filed their nomination papers. After the date of withdrawal, only ten candidates i.e. the petitioners and the respondents were left in the election fray. The polling was held on 22.2.2000 and after counting respondent No. 1 Udai Bhan was declared to have been elected with a margin of 4735 votes over and above the petitioner. The votes polled by each of the said candidates are as under :

(3.) AS per petitioner, the name of one Karan Singh had wrongly been accepted. It was a reserved constituency. Karan Singh does not belong to Schedule Caste. He is a Jat by caste. Details have been given as to how Karan Singh could not contest the poll being a Jat which is not a schedule caste. Karan Singh is stated to have secured 666 votes and that if he had not contested the election those votes would have been polled in favour of the petitioner and, thus, it has materially affected the result. Yet another ground taken up is that under section 38 of the Representation of People Act, 1951 (for short "the Act"), immediately after the expiry of the period of withdrawal, the Returning Officer has to prepare and publish the list of contesting candidates. The last date of withdrawal of nomination papers was 7.2.2000 but the list of contesting candidates was not published on the said date. It was published on 9.2.2000. The Returning Officer had written to the petitioner that symbol will be allotted to all the candidates on 9.2.2000 at 4.00 p.m. In this process, the petitioner got two days less time for canvassing. Due to this delay in allotment of symbols, the petitioner could not approach his voters at the earlier and about 5000 voters promised respondent No. 1 to vote for him as the petitioner could not reach them on 7th or 8th February, 2000. Lastly, it is contended that during the counting on all the booths and during all the rounds, there were about 10,000 votes which were marked by the instrument not prescribed by the Election Commission. The said votes were accepted. Out of them 7,000 votes were accepted in favour of respondent No. 1. 112 votes at booth No. 127 were rejected being marked by instrument other than provided by the Election Commission. After the counting and declaration of result, the counting agents of the petitioner told him that about 10,000 votes having the impression of similar instrument which is not provided by the Election Commission were wrongly accepted. These votes were liable to be rejected and has materially affected the result.