GEETA RANI Vs. REKHA RANI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petition, the petitioner challenges the order dtd. 8/3/2018, passed by the learned Civil Judge (Junior Division), Pehowa, vide which the application filed by the petitioner, seeking dismissal of the election petition filed by respondent no.1 herein (petitioner before that Court), was dismissed, also provisionally allowing the application filed by respondent no.1 seeking to deposit Rs.250.00 as security in the Government treasury, as is necessary by way of a pre-condition to the election petition.

(2.) At the time when the notice was issued in this petition on 20/3/2018, notice regarding stay of the proceedings before the lower Court (Election Tribunal) had also been issued with, eventually, on 3/7/2018, proceedings there having been stayed by this Court, upon learned counsel for the petitioner having cited a judgment of a Division Bench of this Court in Sugan Chand Saini v. Senior Sub-Judge, Narnaul 1996 (3) RCR (Civil) 625. In that judgment, it had been held by the Division Bench that if the requisite fee is not paid at the time of filing of the election petition, the petition is to be rejected at the threshold, with no subsequent petition maintainable to make good the fee.

(3.) Before this Court, Mr. Jagdish Manchanda, learned counsel for the petitioner, other than relying upon the aforesaid judgment, also relied upon a recent judgment of the Supreme Court in Sitaram v. Radhey Shyam Vishnav and others AIR 2018 SC 1298, as also of a co-ordinate Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Balveer Singh v. Secretary, Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission and others 2013 (46) RCR (Civil) 720, to submit that payment of the mandatory fee cannot even be by way of any stamps affixed on the petition and must necessarily be by way of a deposit made in the Government treasury, failing which the election petition must necessarily be dismissed. Thus, he submitted that not only does the fee have to be deposited, it necessarily must be deposited as per the procedure prescribed in Sec. 2 (n) of the Haryana Municipal Election Rules, 1978 (hereinafter to be referred to as the Rules), by which the word "treasury" has been defined as follows:-