In the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh ...... CM No.26686-CII of 2009 and F.A.O. No.5393 of 2009 (O&M) ..... Date of decision:1.9.2011 Balwinder Kaur .....Appellant v. Mandeep Kaur and others .....Respondents .... CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MOHINDER PAL ..... 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest? ...... Present: Mr. Gaurav Mohunta, Advocate for the appellant. Mr. P.S. Kang, Advocate and Ms. Amandeep Kaur, Advocate for respondent No.1. Mr. Ranvir S. Chauhan, Deputy Advocate General, Punjab for respondents No.2 to 4. ..... Mohinder Pal, J. CM No.26686-CII of 2009: For the reasons stated in the application, which is supported by an affidavit, the same is allowed and the delay of seven days in filing the appeal is condoned. FAO No.5393 of 2009 (O&M): This appeal is directed against the order dated 19.8.2009 passed by the Deputy Commissioner-cum-Election Tribunal, Rup Nagar F.A.O. No.5393 of 2009 (O&M) [2] (for short - `the Tribunal'), whereby Election Petition filed by the appellant for setting aside the election of respondent No.1 as Panch was dismissed. The petitioner before the Tribunal had sought setting aside of the election of respondent No.1 as Panch on the ground that the difference of votes between the winning candidate and loosing candidate (appellant) was only three whereas the number of invalid votes which were counted as valid votes in favour of respondent No.1 were four in number and in this manner the number of invalid votes exceeded the margin of winning votes and, therefore, in this eventuality re-election between the candidates should have been held. It is also submitted that the learned Tribunal is required to get recounting of the votes polled by the voters for the contesting candidates. Reliance has been placed on the judgment of this Court in Om Parkash v. Ishwar Singh and others, 2009 (3) RCR (Civil) 670. It has further been argued that respondents have adopted corrupt practices. I have learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the records of the case. A perusal of the record shows that on vote No.231 the name of Smt. Jaswant Kaur wife of Gurdial Singh, on vote No.232 name of Harchand Singh son of Gurdial Singh and on vote No.234 the name of Sikander Singh son of Gurdial Singh has been mentioned in the voter list for the year 2007. On the voter cards the names of Jaswant Kaur, Harchand Singh and Sikander Singh have been mentioned. During the course of hearing before the Tribunal, photostat copies of these voter cards have been produced by respondent No.1. In these voter cards, the name of husband of Smt. Jaswant Kaur has been written as Isher Singh and the name of father of F.A.O. No.5393 of 2009 (O&M) [3] Harchand Singh and Sikander Singh has been written as Isher Singh. These voters were identified by Shri Charan Singh, Lamberdar of Village Gopalpur before the Tribunal, who stated that there were no other persons in the village having above said names. Similarly, at serial No.122 of the voter list, the name of Parwinder Singh son of Gursangat Singh has been mentioned and the copy of the identity card bearing No.JEW-2323533 produced by the counsel for respondent No.1 having photo of a lady, the name of which has been identified by Charan Singh, Lamberdar as Parwinder Kaur wife of Gursangat Singh. Respondent No.3-Presiding Officer has appeared before the Tribunal and has given evidence in which he stated that he allowed the voters to poll votes after due verification/ identification and after seeing the voter cards. He further stated that it was not possible that these four voters had polled the votes in favour of respondent No.1 or their votes had been cancelled because the vote of every voter has to be kept secret as per law. No voter can be denied from voting due to clerical mistake if he/she was having correct voter/identity card in his/her possession. Therefore, the contention of the learned counsel for the appellant cannot be accepted. Secondly, it is case of the appellant that the Returning Officer has not attended to their complaint. If this was the case, he could have further complained to the Deputy Commissioner, or to the higher officers including the observer. No such complaint has been made. The election has taken place on 26.5.2008, while the complaint has been made for the time before the Tribunal on 3.7.2008. The contention of the learned counsel for the appellant that corrupt practices have been adopted during the elections by giving money to the polling party or for distributing F.A.O. No.5393 of 2009 (O&M) [4] liquor to the voters by respondent No.1 could not be sustained. She neither produced any material and evidence nor any witness has been produced by her to prove this allegation. Regarding the allegation with regard to non- counting of votes or counting of votes, the Presiding Officer has stated in his reply that the result was declared after counting of votes twice after satisfying all the candidates/agents. Hence, the recounting can be done only under the circumstances if the appellant brought relevant material or evidence on record. Besides, the Returning Officer mentioned in his reply that he had not received any complaint from the appellant during the course of election proceedings. The appellant did not take any such objection at the time when the counting was being done or even at the time of declaration of the election result. Once the elections are over and respondent No.1 has been elected, the remedy available to the appellant is to approach the competent authority with the relevant material against respondent No.1 for her removal from the office of Panch. It was under these circumstances that the Tribunal, while dismissing the election petition filed by the appellant, held that the allegations as levelled by the appellant against respondent No.1 did not have any substance. I do not find any illegality in the order passed by the Tribunal. Accordingly, the appeal is hereby dismissed. September 1, 2011. (Mohinder Pal) Judge *hsp*