Laxminiwas Ganeriwal vs The Election Commissioner

Misra, C.J.—This is a petition under Art.226 of the Constitution. The Petitioner, Shri Laxminiwas Ganeriwal, was successful at the recent election from Ramnarayanpet Constituency of Medak District for the Hyderabad State Legislative Assembly, having polled 12,656 votes. The contest was against two others, Bhoomji Father, Respondent 4, who polled only 5800 votes and Partha Sarda Devi, Respondent 5, who came last with 5108 votes. The election was declared void by the Election Tribunal at the instance of one Sri Laxmanrao, one of the voters in the Constituency. The order was based on two grounds:

(a) that the nomination papers of two candidates, Jagannath Reddy and Mahboob Ali were improperly rejected by the election officer, and (b) that this rejection materially affected the, result of the election.

It is argued on behalf of Sri Laxminiwas Ganeriwal that cl. (c) of Section 100 gave him the right to prove that the result of the election was not materially affected by the rejection of the nominations but he was not given an opportunity by the Tribunal to do so. It is contended, therefore, that the procedure adopted by the Court below affected him prejudicially and was in violation of the principles of natural justice, The record contains no evidence either one way or the other in respect of the second ground mentioned above. The finding of the Election Tribunal that the improper rejection of the nominations of the aforenamed persons materially affected the result was based on presumption in that behalf which, according to a number of decided cases, always arises where the electors are wrongfully deprived of the right of voting for particular candidates by reason of the rejection of their nominations. It is not contended that the decisions which lay down the above principle are erroneous. What is said is that if the Petitioner was allowed to produce evidence, he would have succeeded in displacing the presumption by proving:

(a) that one of the candidates whose nomination paper was rejected acted as an election agent of one of the contesting candidates viz. Partha Sarada Devi, Respondent 5, and since he lent his entire support to that lady, it should be inferred that even if he had contested the election he would not have obtained more votes than that lady did, and (b) that in any event neither Jagannath Reddy nor Mahboob Ali, whose nomination papers were rejected, was as popular in the Constituency as the Petitioner.

It scarcely admits of any doubt that for the purposes of cl. (c) of Section 100, Representation of the People Act, 1951, the Election Tribunal has merely to give a ''prima facie'' finding. Obviously it cannot determine the question involved with any degree of accuracy without a fresh election. It is of course possible to conceive of cases where an Election Tribunal might be able to say that the rejection would not have caused any difference to the result of the election but this case is not of that type. It appears to us that the first factor which the Petitioner desired to prove, even if established, could not displace the presumption since it would have been impossible to predicate on its basis that the election would have been materially affected thereby.

On the second factor all that could be done was to examine the evidence of the opinions of the witnesses and that at best would have been merely speculative. There is nothing to indicate that the Petitioner asked for an opportunity to produce evidence for the purposes of displacing the presumption or that the failure to afford him a chance of doing so has occasioned any failure of justice. The application must, therefore, be dismissed. We order accordingly.