SHRIBAI Vs. SMT. RUKMANI SHARMA AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner-returned candidate (hereinafter 'the returned candidate') is aggrieved of the judgment dated 8-7-2016 passed by District Judge Karauli (hereinafter 'the Election Tribunal') in Election Petition No. 31/2015, Rukmani Sharma Vs. Shribai and others , whereby the election petition filed by the respondent-election petitioner (hereinafter 'the election petitioner') was allowed, the election of the returned candidate as Sarpanch of Gram Panchayat Rudhkapura Panchayat Samiti Karauli District Karauli set aside and the election petitioner declared elected to the said post.

(2.) Election for the post of Sarpanch of Gram Panchayat Rudhkapura, Panchayat Samiti Karauli was held in Jan., 2015 as per the provisions of the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act, 1994 (hereinafter 'the Act of 1994'). Result thereof was declared on 18-1-2015 and the petitioner elected as Sarpanch. The election petitioner, the only other candidate at the said election, challenged the result on the ground that the returned candidate was not eligible for contesting the election as she had not passed 8th class, and the marks sheet submitted by her along with the nomination paper was fake. Reply of denial was filed by the petitioner. Issues were framed, and evidence thereon laid by the contesting parties.

(3.) The Election Tribunal considering the evidence on record concluded that the returned candidate had contested the election on the basis of a forged marks sheet purporting the returned candidate to have passed class VIII. The mark sheet was fraudulently procured from a school which at the relevant time was not recognised to hold classes beyond class V (5). Further the probabilities of the returned candidate having passed class VIII, the eligibility for contesting election to the post of Sarpanch were zero as she could not even append her signatures and from the evidence on record was over 25 years old when she allegedly passed class VIII from a school at a distance of over 175 kilometers from her residence. Further the returned candidate even did not enter the witness box in her defence. None of the petitioner's children were even literate. The nomination papers filed by the the returned candidate named her school as Navin Higher Primary School Dausa at one place and Nehru Bal Vidhya Mandir Madhogarh Bassi Jaipur, at another. This contradiction was clinching evidence of falsity of the claim of the returned candidate as to her class VIII qualification. The evidence laid by the election petitioner both oral and documentary was unshaken and proved. I am of the considered view that the findings of the trial court/election tribunal on the returned candidate contesting the election on the post of Sarpanch on a forged marks sheet are not even remotely perverse based as they are on an objective consideration of the evidence on record. Nothing erroneous or illegal can even remotely be attributed thereto.