FAO No.4496 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH FAO No. 4496 of 2010 (O&M) Date of Decision: 25.02.2011 Shamsher Singh ...Appellant Versus Jaspal Singh .....Respondent CORAM: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rajesh Bindal Present:- Mr. Amandeep Singh, Advocate for Mr. J.S. Thind, Advocate for the appellant. ..... RAJESH BINDAL, J. The appellant is before this court against the order dated 9.2.2010 passed by the Additional Deputy Commissioner-cum-Presiding Officer, Election Tribunal, Amritsar (for short, `the Tribunal'), whereby election petition filed by him for setting aside the election of respondent as Panch of Gram Panchayat Village Loharka Khurd, District Amritsar, has been dismissed. Briefly, the facts of the case are that the appellant was a voter in the election for Gram Panchayat of Loharka Khurd, District Amrit- sar, which was held on 26.05.2008, in which the respondent was elected as Panch. The election of the respondent was challenged by the appellant on the ground that he was in unauthorized possession of the panchayat land, which was meant to be used for common purposes. It was alleged that the sole motive of the respondent to contest the election was to misappropriate the property of the panchayat. Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that from the mate- rial on record, as was available before the Tribunal, it was fully established that the respondent was in unauthorized possession of land measuring 01 kanal (Gairmumkin) comprised in khasra No.57 of village Loharka Khurd and, therefore, he was disqualified from contesting the election. On the ask- ing of the court as to whether there is compliance of provisions of Section 77 of the Punjab State Election Commission Act, 1994 (for short the Act) with regards to impleadment of respondents in the election petition, the FAO No.4496 of 2010 2 learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the affected parties have been impleaded and not all the elected candidates. Heard learned counsel for the appellant and perused the relevant referred record. The issue, which is required to be considered by this court in the appeal is very short, namely, as to whether a person while challenging the election of any person is required to implead the candidates, who were elected in that category or all the persons who had contested election for various posts of Panches in that Gram Panchayat? Section 77 (a) of the Act, which is extracted below, provides for impleadment of parties in an election petition. “77. Parties to the petition.- A petitioner shall join as respondent to his petition- (a) where he, in addition to claiming declaration that the election of all or any of the returned candidates is void, claims a further declaration that he himself or any other candidate has been duly elected, all the contesting candidates and where no such further declaration is claimed, all the returned candidates; and (b) any other candidate against whom allegation of any corrupt practice is made in the petition.” A perusal of the aforesaid provision shows that election petitioner is required to join as respondent in his election petition all the returned candidates in case the prayer is for declaration of election of all or any of the candidates as void. In the present case, as noticed aforesaid the prayer of the appellant was to declare the election of Jaspal Singh as void. The contention raised by the learned counsel for the appellant that as the elected or contesting candidates of the categories other then those whose election was under challenge, would not be materially affected with the result of the election petition, hence, not required to be impleaded as party therein, cannot be accepted as such. On a plain reading of Section 77 (a) of the Act, it is evident that in case the prayer in the election petition is for declaration of result of all or any of the returned candidates as void, all the elected candidates are to be impleaded as parties. In the present case the appellant had not impleaded all the returned candidates as respondents in the election petition filed by him. The consequence of non-impleading of FAO No.4496 of 2010 3 respondents in an election petition are provided for under Section 80 of the Act, in terms of which the election petition is to be dismissed. Once the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous, the court is to interpret the same in its literal sense and not to give a meaning which would cause violence to the provision of the statute. The court cannot add words in the statute unless a plain literal interpretation of a statutory provision produces a manifestly absurd and unjust result which could never have been intended by the Legislature. It is only in these circumstances that the court can do some violence with the provisions of a statute to achieve the obvious intention of the Legislature and produce a rational construction. The facts of the case in hand do not require this court to use tools for interpretation of statues, as the language of the provision is plain and simple. Similar is the view expressed by this court in Manjit Kaur Vs. Deputy Commissioner-cum-Election Tribunal, Fatehgarh Sahib and others, 2010 (4) RCR (Civil) 784, FAO No.5413 of 2010 titled as Ranjit Kaur Vs. Election Tribunal and others decided on 13.01.2011 and FAO No.3292 of 2010, decided on 24.2.2011 titled as Sukhwinder Singh Vs. Rana Singh and others. For the reasons mentioned above, I do not find any merit in the present appeal, accordingly, the same is dismissed. (Rajesh Bindal) Judge 25.02.2011 sharmila