GOGI Vs. RANJIT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Elections for Sarpanchship of village Ballan, Tehsil and District Ropar had taken place on 29.6.2003. Smt. Gogi appellant had contested the election while Ranjit Singh, respondent No. 1 was the main contestant against her. Smt. Gogi secured 126 votes while Ranjit Singh, respondent No. 1 secured only 123 votes. Accordingly, the appellant was declared elected. Ranjit Singh respondent filed the election petition before Election Tribunal, Ropar. The election of Smt. Gogi was challenged on a number of grounds. One of the grounds was that her real name was Rajinder Kaur and she had contested the election by disclosing her wrong name as Gogi, thereby she defrauded the villagers. The second ground was that she had adopted corrupt practices by distributing liquor and money to get votes. It was also pleaded that many of his votes were rejected at the time of counting and he has suffered a set back in the election process. He also prayed for recount of votes.

(2.) This petition was hotly contested by the appellant on all the grounds.

(3.) Both the parties made statement before the Election Tribunal that they have no objection if the votes were recounted. Accordingly, the entire election record was called by the Election Tribunal. Recounting of the votes was conducted on 9.9.2004. Two votes which were rejected were found to be legal and valid. Those two votes were recounted in the votes secured by Ranjit Singh, respondent. Therefore, the total number of votes secured by Ranjit Singh after recounting came to be 125 while in the recount, the votes secured by Smt.Gogi were 126 as were counted earlier. Therefore, in the recounting again, Ranjit Singh respondent was the looser.