Avtar Singh Brar v. Taj Singh & Others

Judgment

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by FAZAL Au, J. This election appeal arises out of an election to the Baghapurana Constituency {District Faridkot) to the Punjab Legislative Assembly. The polling took place on May 31, 1980 and the counting was done on June 1, 1980. Tej Singh, respondent, secured 25694 votes whereas Avtar Singh (appellant) secured 25571 votes. There were three other candidates also in the field, viz., (l).Sathi Ruplal, (2) Bhogat Puran Singh, and (3) Jagdish Chander. 4 RChupladl securedd 1 1 4 3 0 47 vdot 2 8 s 56 while Bhagat 1 . Pu 1 ran 1 Singh and Jhagdihsh an er secure an votes· respec 1ve y. t appears t at t e margin between the votes secured by Tej Singh (respondent) and Avtar Singh (appellant) was only 123. Avtar Singh filed an elecfon petition in the Punjab & Haryana High Court against Tej Singh alleging that he was guilty of committing corrupt practices, detaile~. in the petition and in the Statement of facts:

Ruplal supported the appellant but Bhagat Puran Singh and Jagdish did not put in any appearance despite service and, therefore, the proceedings were taken ex parte against them. Tej Singh denied having indulged in any corrupt practice as alleged by Avtar Singh. It is not necessary for us to go into further details because, in our opinion, the appeal must succeed on a short point. The main corrupt practice said to have been indulged in Tej Singh was that he had got circulated paophlets and posters among the voters of the J constituency wherein he had mentioned that Ruplal had withdrawn ;'r" his candidature and any vote given to him (Tej Singh) would be deemed to be a vote for Ruplal, and the said posters were printed not by Ruplal but at the .instance of Te~ Singh. On a perusal of the evidence-both oral and documentaryadduced by the parties, we are clearly of the opinion that the allega-· tions of corrupt practices indulged in by Tej Singh have been clearly proved.

The posters said to have been printed and circulated are Annexures P-1 and P-2 which appear at page 42 of the second paper book and it may be necessary to extract certainportions thereof- "Keeping in view the present conditions in the country it is imperative to defeat the dictatorial Congre;'!; in these electiens. y AVTAR SINGH v. TAJ SINGH (Fazal Ali, J.) Therefore, I fervently appeal to all the voters ofBagha- · purana Constituency to vote and elect Shri Tej Singh, the joint front candidate of the Akali Dal, because Shri Tej Singh is the only candidate who can defeat the Congress ...... In . the end I submit that every vote cast in favour of S. Tej Singh will be deemed to have been cast in my favour." According to PW 4 (Roshanlal) in whose press the posters were printed, the order for the printing was placed by Darshan Singh and Mukhtiar Singh. The witness goes on to state that a few days before Tej Singh had come to his printing press and informed him that he (Tej.

Singh) would be sending some work for printing. Soon thereafter the witness was approached by Darshan Singh and Mukhtiar Singh. Roshan Lal also. admitted that Tej s;ngh was known to him. The witness further proved Ex, P-5 and P-6 (vouchers) which were issued by his press and signed by him; and he stated that the payment was made to him by Darshan Singh and Mukhtiar Singh. The effect of the posters>was to mislead the vo.ters so as to mlke them believe that one of the candidates, viz., Ruplal, had withdrawn and any vote given to Tej Singh would be considered as a vote given to Ruplal. In other words, the effect of the posters was that all the voters who would have voted for Rnplal would now cast their votes' in favour of Tej Singh. As the margin of votes between the deteated and the returned candidates was very small, viz. 123 votes, if such a misrepresentation was not made, in all probability the votes would have gone to the appellant (Avtar Singh) and, therefore, the J:esult of the election would have been materially altered.

We find a· good deal of substance in the argument of the appellant. Tej Singh (R.W. 28) has not disputed that the payment of the vouchers (Ex. P-5 and P-6) was made by him and the vouchers were appended by him along with the return of expenses incurred during his election campaign, which was verified by him to be a true and correct statement.• In these circumstances, therefore, the irresistible inference and inescapable concll.'sion that can be arrived at is that Tej Singh had actually paid for the posters which were printed at his instance and Rup Lal was not connected with the printing of the posters. Tej Singh further admitted that Bhum Raj was incharge of his eleciion office at Moga and that Exs,P-5 and P-6 were taken by him from Bhum Raj. He further admits that whatever expenses were incurred by i.lhum Raj were incurred on his be)lalf.

In other words, T~j Singh f~Jsely tepresented to the. voters that the posters were circulated by Ruplal whereas the same was done by or with the consent of Tej Singh. Therefore, it is clear that Ex-P-1 and P-2 which contained the appeal purporting to be ·of Ruplal were in fact printed at the instance of Tej Singh and Ruplal had no conn~ction with the same. In these circumstances, we are satisfied that the appellant has proved beyond reasonable doubt that Tej Singh had indulged in corrupt practices particularly when the printing of the posters by Tcj Singh has been clearly admitted by him, as indicated above. It is also clear to us that in view of the very narrow margin of votes (123) between Tej Singh and Avtar Singh, a strong presumption and possibility that the votes polled in favour of Rup Lal would have gone to Avtar Singh cannot be ruled out and that would have doubtless male- . rially altered the result of the election.

Leaving aside other grounds taken by the appetlant which were in fact not pressed before· us, the appellant is entitled to succeed on the ground of corrupt practices (referred to above) as contemplated by S. 123(2) of the Act having been adopted by the first respondent JTej Singh) which have been fully proved. The result is that the appeal is allowed, the judgment of the High Court is quashed and the election of the first respondent (Tej Singh) is set aside. In the circumstances, we make no order as to costs. • H.S.K . Appea! allowed.