NAND LAL Vs. RATTAN SINGH AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AN election for the office of Sarpanch of Umra Gram Sabha, was held on January 3 and 4, 1964, at village Umra. The Returning Officer counted the votes in favour of Nand Lal, Petitioner as 754, in favour of Rattan Singh, Respondent 1, as 714, and in favour of Lal Chand, Respondent 3, as 559, thus declaring the Petitioner elected to that office.

(2.) AN election petition calling in question the election of the Petitioner under Sections 13 -B and 13 -C of the Punjab Gram Panchayat Act, 1952 (Punjab Act 4 of 1953), as amended by the Gram Panchayat (Amendment) Act, 1962 (Punjab Act 26 of 1962), was made by Giani, Respondent 2, as voter in the Gram Sabha area.

(3.) ON scrutiny the Tribunal found that votes of twenty -nine of the forty dead voters, whose death certificates had been produced had been polled in favour of the Petitioner. There is nothing to show what happened to the remaining eleven votes of dead persons whose death certificates had also been produced. Now. according to the first declaration of the Returning Officer, the votes polled by the Petitioner were 754, by Respondent 1, 714, and by Respondent 3, 559. If twenty -nine of the votes of the dead persons personated in favour of the Petitioner were to be eliminated from the votes polled by him, the total of the votes polled by him would still have remained at 725, in which case also he remained with the largest number of votes polled as against the other two candidates, that is to say Respondents 1 and 3. However, the Tribunal then recounted the votes of each one of the three and it appears from his order of May 31, 1965 (Annexure 'B'), that on such recount, after eliminating void and invalid votes, the votes polled in favour of the Petitioner came to 712, and those polled in favour of Respondent 1 and Respondent 3 came to 742 and 571, respectively. It will be seen that the votes polled increased both in the case of Respondents 1 and 3, and there was a decrease in the votes polled by the Petitioner. On that, by his order of July 2, 1965, the Tribunal proceeded to accept the election petition of Respondent 2 and to set aside the election of the Petitioner.