Landmark Judgements on Election Law
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
. LANDMARK JUDGEMENTS ON ELECTION LAW ( A Compilation of important and far-reaching Judgements pronounced by Supreme Court of India, High Courts and Election Commission of India ) VOLUME - II ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA NEW DELHI Volume II Sl No Contents Page No 1. Jyoti Basu & Others Vs. Debi Ghosal & Others 561 (Supreme Court of India) 2. Km. Shradha Devi Vs. Krishna Chandra Pant & Others 572 (Supreme Court of India) 3. Pashupati Nath Sukul Vs. Nem Chandra Jain & Others 592 (Supreme Court of India) 4. A.C. Jose Vs. Sivan Pillai & Others 609 (Supreme Court of India) 5. Election Commission of India Vs. State of Haryana 625 (Supreme Court of India) 6. Samarath Lal Vs. Chief Election Commissioner & Others 640 (Supreme Court of India) 7. (i) Lakshmi Charan Sen Vs. A.K.M. Hassan Uzzaman 642 & Others (ii) Election Commission of India Vs. A.K.M. Hassan Uzzaman (Supreme Court of India) 8. Krishna Ballabh Prasad Singh Vs. 682 Sub-Divisional Officer, Hilsa-cum-Returning Officer & Others (Supreme Court of India) 9. Indrajit Barua Vs. Election Commission of India 687 & Others (Supreme Court of India) 10. Kanhiya Lal Omar Vs. R.K. Trivedi & Others 700 (Supreme Court of India) 11. Azhar Hussain Vs. Rajiv Gandhi 715 (Supreme Court of India) 12. Dhartipakar Madan Lal Agarwal Vs. Rajiv Gandhi 746 (Supreme Court of India) 13. Election Commission of India Vs. Shivaji & Others 779 (Supreme Court of India) 14. B. Sundra Rami Reddy Vs. Election Commission of India 790 (Supreme Court of India) 15. Shri Kihota Hollohon Vs. Mr. Zachilhu & Others 793 (Supreme Court of India) 16. Rama Kant Pandey Vs. Union of India 894 (Supreme Court of India) 17. Lal Babu Hussain & Others Vs. Electoral Registration Officer 901 (Supreme Court of India) 18. T.N. Seshan Vs. Union of India & Others 920 (Supreme Court of India) 19. Janata Dal (Samajwadi) Vs. Election Commission of India 959 (Supreme Court of India) 20. Common Cause, A Registered Society Vs. Union of India 967 & Others. (Supreme Court of India) 21. Kanhaiya Prasad Sinha Vs. Union of India & Others 987 (Patna High Court) 22. N. Kristappa Vs. Chief Election Commissioner & Others 996 (Andhra Pradesh High Court) 23. P. Ravindra Reddy, P.Indrajit Reddy, P. Bayyapa Reddy Vs. 1010 Election Commission of India & Others (Andhra Pradesh High Court) 24. Om Prakash Srivastava alias Babloo Srivastava Vs 1027 Election Commission of India & Others (Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench) 25. Harbans Singh Jalal Vs. Union of India & Others 1043 (Punjab and Haryana High Court) 26. Kotha Dass Goud Vs. The Returning Officer, 1059 41-Nalgonda P.C. and Election Commission of India (Andhra Pradesh High Court) 27. Arjun Singh Vs. The President, Indian National Congress 1067 (Election Commission of India) Volume I ( Details of following Judegements are available in Landmark Judgements Volume I) Sl.No. CONTENTS 28. N. P. Ponnuswami Vs. The Returning Officer, Namakkal Constituency (Supreme Court of India) 29. Election Commission of India Vs. Saka Venkata Rao (Supreme Court of India) 30. Brundaban Nayak Vs. Election Commission of India & Another (Supreme Court of India) 31. Meghraj Kothari Vs. Delimitation Commission & Others (Supreme Court of India) 32. Pashupati Nath Singh Vs. Harihar Prasad Singh (Supreme Court of India) 33. Sadiq Ali & Another Vs. Election Commission of India & Others (Supreme Court of India) 34. Smt. Indira Nehru Gandhi Vs. Shri Raj Narayan (Supreme Court of India) 35. All Party Hill Leaders’ Conference Vs. Captain W.A. Sangma (Supreme Court of India) 36. Narendra Madivalapa Kheni Vs. Manikarao Patil & Others (Supreme Court of India) 37. Mohinder Singh Gill & Another Vs. Chief Election Commissioner & Others (Supreme Court of India) SUPREME COURT OF INDIA* Civil Appeal No. 1553 of 1980$ (Decision dated 26-2-1982) Joyti Basu and Others, .. Appellants Vs. Debi Ghosal and Others, .. Respondents. SUMMARY OF THE CASE Sh. Mohd. Ismail, sponsored by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), was elected to the House of the People from the 19-Barrackpore Parliamentary Constituency in West Bengal at the general election held in January, 1980. An election petition was filed before the Calcutta High Court by one of the rival candidates Shri Debi Ghosal. In that election petition, the election petitioner joined, apart from the returned candidate, Sh. Jyoti Basu, who was the Chief Minister of West Bengal, and two other Ministers of the Government of West Bengal, as respondents, alleging that they had colluded and the conspired with the returned candidate to commit various corrupt practices. Shri Jyoti Basu submitted before the High Court that he could not be impleaded as respondent to an election petition under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. That objection was, however, over -ruled by the High Court. Aggrieved by the order of the High Court rejecting his application for striking out his name from the array of parties in the election petition, Shri Jyoti Basu filed the present appeal before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upheld his contention and allowed his appeal, holding that under Section 82 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 only the candidates at the impugned election could be joined as respondents to an election petition, and no one else. Representation of the Peple Act (43 of 1951), Ss. 82, 86 (4), 87 (1) and 99 — Election petition — Persons mentioned in Ss 82 and 86 (4) only can be joined as respondents. (1981) 85 Cal WN 532, Reversed. No one may be joined as a party to an election petition otherwise than as provided by Ss. 82 and 86 (4) of the Act. It follows that a person who is not a candidate may not be joined as a respondent to the election petition. (1981) 85 Cal WN 532 Reversed (Paras 9, 13) It is not as if a person guilty of a corrupt practice can get away with it. Where at the concluding stage of the trial of an election petition, after evidence has been given, the Court finds that there is sufficient material to hold a person guilty of a corrupt practice, the Court may then issue a notice to him to show cause under S. 99 and proceed with further action. The legislative provision contained in Section 99 which enables the Court, towards the end of the trial of an election petition, to issue a notice to a person not a party to the proceeding to shows cause why he should not be ‘‘named’’ in sufficient clarification of the legislative intent that such person may not be permitted to be joined as a party to the election petition. AIR 1952 SC 64; AIR 1954 SC 210; AIR 1969 SC 677 and AIR 1969 SC 872 (Para 11) Rel. on. Cases Referred: Chronological Paras AIR 1973 Punj & Har 163 (FB) 13 AIR 1969 SC 677 : (1969) 1 SCR 630 10 AIR 1969 SC 872: (1969) 1 SCR 679 10 AIR 1969 Bom 177 13 AIR 1963 Cal 218 13 AIR 1958 Mad 171 13 AIR 1954 SC 210 7 AIR 1952 SC 64 : 1952 SCR 218 7 JUDGMENT Present:- R.S. Pathak and O. Chinnappa Reddy, JJ. Mr. Somnath Chatterjee, Sr. Advocate, Mr. Rathin Das and Mr. Aninda Mitter, Advocates with him, for Appellants; Mr Sidhartha Shankar Ray, Sr. Advocate, M/s. R.K. Lala and T.V.S.N. Chari, Advocates with him, for Respondent No. 1. CHINNAPA REDDY, J:– The first appellant, Jyoti Basu, is the Chief Minister and appellants two and three Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Hashim Abdul Halim, are two Ministers of the Government of West Bengal. They have been impleaded by the first respondent as parties to an election petition filed by him questioning the election of the second respondent to the House of the People from the 19 Barrackpore Parliamentary Constituency in the midterm Parliamentary election held in January, 1980. There were five candidates who sought election from the Constituency. Mod. Ismail, the first respondent, whose candidature was sponsored by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was, elected securing 2,66,698 votes as against Debi Ghosal, a candidate sponsored by the Indian National Congress led by Smt. Indira Gandhi who secured 1,62,770 votes. The other candidates Ramjit Ram, Robi Shankar Pandey and Bejoy Narayan Mishra secured 25,734, 12,271 and 2,763 votes respectively. The first respondent filed an election petition in the High Court of Calcutta questioning the election of the second respondent Mohd. Ismail on various grounds. He impleaded the returned candidate as the first respondent, and the other three unsuccessful candidates as respondents 2, 3 and 4 to the election petition. Besides the candidates at the election, he impleaded several others as respondents. The District Magistrate and returning Officer was impleaded as the fifth respondent, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the Minister for Information and Publicity, Government of West Bengal as the sixth respondent. Jyoti Basu, the Chief Minister as the seventh respondent, Md. Amin, the Minister of the Transport Branch of the Home Department as the eighth respondent, Hashim Abdul Halim, the Minister of the Legislative and the Judicial Department as the ninth respondent and the Electoral Registration Officer as the tenth respondent. It was averred in the election petition that the Chief Minister and the other Ministers of the Government of West Bengal who were impleaded as parties to the election petition had colluded and conspired with the returned candidate to commit various alleged corrupt practices. Apart from denying the commission of the various alleged corrupt practices, the Chief Minister and the other Ministers claimed in their written statements that the election petitioner was not entitled to implead them as parties to the election petition. They claimed that as they were not candidates at the election they could not be impleaded as parties to the election petition.