GH QADIR MIR Vs. BASHIR AHMAD MAGREY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an election petition. The parties to this petition offered themselves as candidates for election to the State Assembly from Rajpura Constituency in the general elections held in the year 1972. The candi ­dature of respondent No. 5 did not find favour with the Returning Officer who rejected his nomination paper. He, however, approved the candidature of the petitioner and respondents 1 to 4 ; and every one of them tried his strength in the field. Polling was held on 11 -3 -1972 and the counting took place on 12 -3 -1972. Respondent No. 1 came out victorious, securing 9079 votes, closely followed by the petitioner who secured 8248 votes. Respondents 2 to 4 lagged far behind securing 1340, 1126 and 1217 votes, res ­pectively. As many as 2034 votes were found invalid. Aggrieved by the election of respondent No. 1, which, he says, was due to the illegal, irregular and corrupt practices resorted to by respondent No. 1, the petitioner has filed this petition with a twin prayer ; one, that the election of respondent No. 1 be declared to be void : and, (2) that the petitioner be declared to have been duly elected.

(2.) BROADLY stated, the petition is founded on the following grounds: - (1) Improper rejection of nomination paper of respondent No. 5 ; (2) Improper rejection of votes in favour of the petitioner at the time of counting; and (3) Improper reception of votes in favour of res ­pondent No. 1 on the day of poll.

(3.) AT the trial, the petitioner has concentrated his efforts on substantiating the last two grounds only. The averments touching these two grounds are con ­tained in para 9 of the petition in these words : "The petitioner seeks avoidance of election of respondent No. 1 and a declaration that he has been instead elected by a majority of votes on the following grounds: (a) That from among the votes declared invalid (their number being 2034) large number of votes polled in favour of the petitioner were unjustifiably and illegally rejected. In this way more than 1500 valid votes polled in favour of the petitioner were invalidated in the three rounds of counting. An inspection of the rejected ballot papers is prayed for to indicate that even as they are, they in law and fact had to be counted in favour of the petitioner as valid votes polled by him. The counting was effected in three rounds after the ballot papers from the boxes of all the polling stations were put in a big wooden box in bundles of twenty -five ballot papers each. Thirty such bundles were put on each table (their being twelve in all) with the result that 9000 votes came to be counted in a round.