As 695 early as 1952 when the first election under the Constitution took place, a Constitution Bench of this Court in N.P. Ponnuswami vs Returning Officer, Namakkal Constituency & Ors., (1) observed: "The right to vote or stand as a candidate for election is not a civil right but is a creature of statute or special law and must be subject to the limitations imposed by it." while dealing with an appeal in an election dispute arising out of the first series of elections under the Constitution, Mahajan, C.J., speaking for a Constitution Bench of this Court stated in Jagan Nath vs Jaswant Singh & Ors.(2): "The general rule is well settled that the statutory requirements of election law must be strictly observed and that an election contest is not an action at law or a suit in equity but is a purely statutory proceeding unknown to the common law and the Court possesses no common law power.