N.L. VERMA Vs. MUNI LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by Shri N.L. Verma against the order of the Election Tribunal, Ambala, dismissing his petition praying that the election of Shri Muni Lal, one of the two respondents, to the Simla constituency of the Punjab Legislative Assembly during the last general elections, be declared void. The appellant is the husband of Smt. Lajja who was a candidate put up by the Congress party in that election and was also her election agent and a voter in that constituency. Shri Muni Lal, respondent No. 1, who was the candidate put up by the Praja Socialist party, was declared successful at the election and Smt. Lajja secured the next highest number of votes. Two other candidates were Shri Kesar Singh and Shri Gian Chand, out of whom the former was made the second respondent to the petition and some of the issues related to him, but we are not concerned with those issues in this appeal and Shri Muni Lal will, therefore, be referred to as the respondent.

(2.) THE respondent is a Kanait by caste and was born and brought up in the constituency for which he was a candidate. The main ground of attack was that he, his agents and supporters systematically and vigorously propagated the cult of Pahari and non -Pahari, and of Kanait and non -Kanait, throughout the constituency and thus secured votes for him of the preponderant Pahari population by appealing on grounds of caste and community and thereby contravened the provisions of section 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act (hereinafter to be referred to as the Act). This formed the subject -matter of issue No. 1. It was next contended that the respondent gave money to the electors and their relations with the object of inducing them to vote in his favour and this formed the subject -matter of issue No. 3. A further allegation in the petition was that the respondent had not kept the account of his election expenses from day to day as required by rule 131 of the Representation of the People (Conduct of Elections and Election Petitions) Rules, 1956, and had also failed to show in the return of his expenses various items of expenditure incurred by him and had thereby contravened the provisions of section 77 of the Act which would amount to a corrupt practice within the meaning of section 123(6) of the Act. This formed the subject -matter of issue No. 4. Other objections were taken, on the basis of which other issues were framed but they have not been agitated in appeal. All the issues were found against the appellant leading to the dismissal of the election petition, but the parties were left to bear their own costs.

(3.) ISSUE No. 1. - - Mr. D.N. Aggarwal on behalf of the appellant did not press that part of this issue with regard to the respondent emphasising that he was a Kanait while Smt. Lajja, wife of the appellant, was a non -Kanait. It was, however, strenuously, argued that the respondent and his supporters in their electioneering speeches emphasised that the respondent was a Pahari while the appellant's wife was not, and that inasmuch as Paharis were a separate community, it must be held that there was a systematic appeal by the respondent and his workers to the voters to vote or refrain from voting on the ground of community, and this came within the mischief of sub -section (3) of section 123 of the Act. The learned Tribunal in its elaborate and exhaustive judgment has devoted much space to the consideration of what constitutes a community within the meaning of the term as used in sub -section (3) of section 123, and his conclusion is that Paharis do constitute a community within the meaning of that provision. In this connection he has referred to a speech given by Shri Hira Singh Pal, R.W. (reproduced as exhibit P.W. 31/A) in which it was stated that customs and ceremonies of the people living in the hills were different from those living in the plains and for that reason they wanted a separate province of that area. The manners and customs of people would be differing, though perhaps by an imperceptible gradation, as one moves from one part of our vast country to another, and if the argument be that merely because there are persons residing in a particular locality that locality must be deemed to be inhabited by a distinct community, I would find myself unable to accept it. In the present case, however, the academic discussion of what constitutes a separate community is not really necessary, because the Tribunal found that the appeal made to the electors by the respondent and his workers was really on the ground that they were living in the special locality of the hills which had certain peculiar economic and other problems, the redress and solution of which could be obtained if they returned in the election some one who was born and bred up in that area and was intimately aware of those problems. In finding that this was the real purport of the speeches referred to in the petition, the Tribunal relied on the reports of most of those speeches as taken down by Prem Chand, a police constable, who was deputed to attend the meetings called in support of different candidates in police station Sehri and to report about those speeches. At that time, there was no reason why Prem Chand should prepare incorrect reports, and the Tribunal was fully justified in considering that he did take down a fair representation of the general drift of the speeches in question. In his reports (carbon copies exhibits P.W. 31 -A, P.W. 31 -B and P.W. 31 -C) the purport of these speeches was that the member from the Congress party who was previously representing this constituency in the Assembly, was a Desi, i.e., a man from the plains, who had no knowledge about the living conditions and problems of people in the hills and had not done anything for the amelioration of the residents of that backward area. The electors were, therefore, exhorted to return the respondent who, having been born and bred up in that area, would work zealously for the amelioration of their economic conditions and educational backwardness. These appear to me to be quite legitimate appeals to the reason of the electors and not to their sentiments or passions as belonging to a particular community, and I am unable to find in these speeches anything which would offend the provisions of the election law.