DHAE.AM SINGH RATHI v. HARI SINGH M.L.A & Ors.

Representation of the People Act, 1951-hereinafter called the Act, by the election petitioner whose petition challenging the election of H respondent no. 1 (for brevity-the respondent) has been dismissed by the High Court. Eventually the only ground which could be pressed in the Hill? Court to challenge the election of the respondent ~as that the. nommat10n papers .of two pers~ns namely Shri Jagan Nath and Shn ~rabha Ram were improperly reiected b~ the Returning Officer. The High Court framed only two issues for trial and decided 'j --!o'i 470 A SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1975] SUPP· S.C.R. them against the appellant. It has held that the nomination papers both of Jagan '.~ath and Prabha Ram suffered from defects of substantial character and, there:fore, they were rightly rejected by the Returning Officer. C Jagan Nath filed two nomination papers in the prescribed Form D No. 28 prescribed under rule 4 of the Conduct of the Election Rules 1961-hereinafter referred to as the Rules. In both the papers in the column "His postal address" the only thing written was-"Smalkha Mandi". The Returning Officer rejected both the nomination papers <Jf Jagan Nath on the ground that the candidate had not given the name of his father and his full address. The name given as Jagan Nath and address as Smalkha Mandi were not sufficient. The Return- ing Officer described if as a technical error fit to be rectified but because there was nobody present on behalf of the candidate at the time of the scrutiny of the nomination papers the rectification could not be made. Hence the nominations were rejected. Following the decisions of this Court in Brijendralal Gupta and another v. Jwalaprasad and· others(') and in Prahladdas Khandeiwal v. Narendra Kumar Salve(') the High Court has held that the nomination papers suffered from a defact of non-compliance with the requireljlent of section 33 (1) of the Act and that the defect was of a substantial character. On consideration ,of the evidence adduced before it, it held : D E "Thus in the established circumstances of the case, it was manifest that the mention of Smalkha Mandi only, in the nomination papers was no more than an apology of an address. It was, according to Mr. Joginder Pal Narang's testimony in this Court hopelessly incomplete. To my mind also it was equal to not giving any address at all." F We concur in the view of the High Court that filling up the· column of postal address of the candidate in 'the nomination paper is necessary. The High Court has referred to several provisions in the Act and the Rules to point out the. purpose of supplying the postal address. It appears that the name of the post office concerning Smalkha Mandi, Smalkha village, Model Town etc. was Smalkha. The name of the post office was not Smalkha Mandi. On the face G of the address- given in the nomination papers there was the defect of incorrect mention of the name of the post office. The name of the District was also not given. It has come in the evidence of the respondent that there were other place~ of the names of Smalkha and Smalkha Mandi in the States of Haryana and Rajasthan. Even ignor ing the defects aforesaid the High Court has noticed on consideration of the evidence and specially of Jagan Nath himself that the postal H address given in either of his nomination forms was so very incom plete that no letter addressed to him to that address could possibly be delivered to him. There were several persons of the name of Jagan Nath was .. Jagan Nath in Smalkha Mandi, Smalkha village. (J) [1960] 3 S.C.R.650. (2) [1973] 2 S.C.R.157. • r ( .. .• ' D. s. RATH! v. HAR! SINGH (U11twalia, J.) 471 serving at the shop of a Sweet meat Seller, Railway Road, Smalkha A Mandi and was resident of Bharbbujanwali Gali. The interesting part It of this case is that Jagan Nath did not file an election petition. was filed by the brother of an unsuccessful candidate. Eventually Jagan Nath was impleaded as a respondent in the election petition. He filed a written statement and examined himself as R.\V. 5. His definite case was that until and unless some more details were given B in his postal address no letter on that skeleton descriptio11 as given in the nomination papers could -be delivered to him by the postal autho rities.· Taking the totality of the circumstances the High Court has rightly held that no postal address in effect was given on either of. the nomination papers of Jagan Nath . A nomination paper ha~ to be delivered to the Returning Officer by the candidate or his proposer in accordance with section 33(1) of the Act. The nomination paper must be completed in the pres cribed form. The requirement of sub-section ( 4) is .that the Retur_ning Officer shall satisfy himself on the presentation of a nomination paper that the names and electoral roll numbers of the candidate and 'his proposer as entered i!l the nomination paper are the same as those In certain types of defects detected entered in the electoral rolls. at the time of the presentation of the nomination paper the proviso to sub-section ( 4) empowers the Returning Officer to overlook such mistakes er to get them rectified as the case may be. Generally speaking the kinds of defects mentioned in the proviso would be of a substantial character so as to jnstify the rejection of a nomination paper. There may, however, even amongst these types of defects be some such that necessitates their rectification and if not rectified tliat may make the nomination paper liable to be rejected. But the defect of non-supply of postal address is not covered by the proviso It is a defect which to sub-section ( 4) of section 33 of the Act. rails for consideration at the time of the scrutiny of the nomination If the defect is a substantial one then the nomination paper papers. has got to be rejected. Sub-section (4) of section 36 enjoins the Returning Officer not to reject any nomination paper on the ground of any defect which is not of a substantial _character. But if it is of a substantial character then sub-section (2) provides that the Return- ing Officer shall reject the nomination paper when "there has been a failure to comply with any of the provisions of section 33 or section 34:" Reading Rule 4 of the Rules and Form 28 it would be noticed that ~on-supply of yosta.1 address of the candidate or supplying such cryptic address which virtually amounts to non-supply of address is a failure to comply with the provisions of section 33 (1). Hence we agree with the findings of the High Court that Jagan Nath's nomina- tion papers were not improperly rejected by the Returning Officer. · c D E F G The nomination paper of Prabha Ram suffered from more serious H types of defects. The Returning Officer rejected the nomination of Prabha Ram on the grounds (1) that the name of the Constituency of the proposer was not gi~en in the no;::'nation paper ; (2) that the numbers of electoral roll given in the nomination paper did not tally the electro! roll; · with the candidate's number in the true copy of IOSC/75-31 472 A B SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1975] SUPP· S.C.R. ( 3) that at the name of the proposer one more name was given and the entries in the electoral roll did not tally with the numbers mentioned by the proposer and the candidate in the nomination paper. Following the dictum of this Court in the case of N. T. Veluswami Thever v. C. Raja Nainar and others(') the High Court has taken into consi deration another defect, in that the thumb impression of one of the two proposers had not been authenticated in the manner required by law. Even ignoring grounds 2 and 3 forming the basis of the order of the Returning. Officer rejecting the nomination paper of Prabha Ram as being possibly covered by the proviso to section 33 ( 4), the first defect pointed out by the Returning Officer was of a substantial character. It made it obligatory for him to reject the nomination paper. Over and above that defect the High Court has rightly C noticed another fatal defect. Section 2(i) o~ the Act says : " 'sign' in relation to a person who is unable to write his name means authenticate in such manner as may be prescribed." D The prescribed manner of authentication i~ to be found in Rule 2(2) of the Rules. A thumb mark has to be placed by the proposer on the nomination paper in the presence of the Returning Officer and such officer on being satisfied as to his identity has to attest the mark as being the mark of that person. There was, therefore, a clear violation of this rule also. We see no reason to differ from the view E of the fligh Court that the nomination paper of Prabha Ram was not improperly rejected by the Returning Officer. For the reasons stated above the appeal fails and is dismissed with costs payable to respondent no. 1 alone. Appeal dismissed. P.B.R. (1) A.LR. 1959 S.C. 422. \ • f. ' ' I