IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY SEVENTH DAY OF AUGUST TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI ANIL R. DAVE, THE CHIEF JUSTICE and THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE VILAS V. AFZULPURKAR WRIT APPEAL NO : 918 of 2008 (Writ Appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent against the Order dated 17/07/2008 in WP NO : 12190 OF 2008 on the file of the High Court.) Between: Thathireddy Sandhya Rani, W/o. Dhasaradha Reddy, (Elected 11th Ward Member for Kanigiri Grama Panchayat R/o. Kasireddy Bazar, kothapet, Kanigiri, Prakasam District. ..... APPELLANT AND 1 The Election Commissioner for the State of A.P., Hyderabad. 2 The Secretary, Panchayat Raj Department, Hyderabad. 3 The Collector cum District Election Authority, Prakasam District, Ongole. 4 The Revenue Divisional Officer cum Deputy Election Authority, Kandukur, Prakasam District. 5 Mandal Parishad Development officer cum Mandal Election Authority, Kanigiri Mandal, Prakasam District. 6 The Stage-I-Officer, held by Smt. S.Lydiyamma, Project Director, ICDS, Ongole,Prakasam District. 7 Rachamalla Nageswari, W/o. Srinivasa Reddy, Hindu, R/o. Kanigiri Village and Mandal, Prakasam District. .....RESPONDENT(S) Counsel for the Appellant:MR.M.SUBBA REDDY Counsel for the Respondent No.: GP FOR PANCHAYAT RAJ & RURAL DEV. The Court made the following : JUDGMENT: (Per Anil R. Dave, CJ) Being aggrieved by the order passed in W.P.No. 12190 of 2008, dated 17-7-2008, this appeal has been ﬁled by the original petitioner who was declared as an elected member of Kanigiri Gram Panchayat from Ward No. 11. The facts giving rise for ﬁling the present appeal, in a nutshell, are as under: After the appellant was elected, the validity of her election was challenged in E.O.P.No. 11 of 2006 in the Court of the Junior Civil Judge, Kanigiri on the ground that the appellant had not attained the age of 21 years at the time when she had ﬁled her nomination and, therefore, she was not qualified to contest the election. The Election Tribunal, after considering the evidence led before it, came to the conclusion that the appellant had not attained the age of 21 years and, therefore, she was not competent to contest the election. The aforestated Election Petition was allowed and the election of the appellant was quashed and set aside. Being aggrieved by the ﬁnal outcome of E.O.P.No. 11 of 2006, the appellant had filed W.P.No. 12190 of 2008. After considering the facts and upon appreciation of evidence, the learned Single Judge has conﬁrmed the order passed by the Election Tribunal holding that the appellant had not completed 21 years of age at the time when she had contested the election and the petition was therefore, rejected. Being aggrieved by the order of rejection, this appeal has been filed. For the purpose of establishing her date of birth, the learned Advocate appearing for the appellant has relied upon the judgment reported in the case in BIRAD MAL SINGHVI v. ANAND PUROHIT[1] to submit that the parents or near relatives having special knowledge are the best persons to depose about the date of birth of a person. Learned Advocate for the appellant has also submitted that the said judgment was relied upon by this Court in the case in D.MADHUSUDHAN REDDY v. ELECTION COURT[2]. It has been submitted that in fact, the appellant was qualiﬁed to contest the election as she had completed the age of 21 years at the time when her nomination papers were filed. We have heard the learned Advocate and have also considered the judgments delivered by the learned Single Judge as well as the judgments referred to by the learned Advocate for the appellant. It is abundantly clear that evidence was led by the person who had challenged the validity of the election to the eﬀect that the appellant had not completed 21 years of age at the time when the nomination papers were ﬁled. In that event the burden was on the appellant to establish that she had in fact attained the age of 21 years at the time when nomination papers had been ﬁled. No evidence was led by the appellant to rebut the evidence adduced by the other side. In the aforestated circumstances, ultimately, the Tribunal came to the conclusion that the appellant was not qualiﬁed to contest the election, as she had not completed the age of 21 years at the time when nomination papers were filed. In our opinion, the judgments cited by the learned Advocate would not render any assistance to the appellant for the reason that it is not in dispute that no evidence was led by the appellant to show that she had completed 21 years of age at the time when nomination papers were ﬁled, whereas documentary evidence was led to the eﬀect that the appellant had not completed 21 years of age at the time when nomination papers were filed by the appellant. For the aforestated circumstances, in our opinion, no fault can be found with the ﬁnal conclusions arrived at by the Tribunal or by the learned Single Judge who conﬁrmed the order of the Tribunal. We see no reason to interfere with the order passed by the learned Single Judge and, therefore, the appeal is dismissed. The appeal stands dismissed with no order as to costs. _______________________ ANIL R. DAVE, CJ _____________________________ VILAS V. AFZULPURKAR, J 27th August, 2008. GRR [1] AIR 1988 SC 1796 [2] 1991 (1) ALT 349