IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.16682 of 2010 Date of decision: 26th October, 2010 Ram Narayan … Petitioner Versus State of Haryana and others … Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA Present: Mr. Balraj Gujjar, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Sukhvinder Singh Nara, Sr. DAG Haryana for respondents No.1 to 3. Mr. N.S. Shekhawat, Advocate for respondent No.4. Mr. Sanjay Vashist, Advocate for respondent No.5. KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA, J. (ORAL) In the present writ petition, a prayer has been made that a writ in the nature of certiorari be issued and result dated 12th June, 2010 (Annexure P-3), vide which respondent No.5-Ishwar Singh was declared as Panch from Ward No.7, be set aside. Briefly stated, the petitioner had contested an election of Gram Panchayat from village Sangwan, Tehsil Tosham, District Bhiwani, which was held on 12th June, 2010. The petitioner and respondent No.5 were candidates from Ward No.7. Respondent No.4 – Presiding-cum- Returning Officer is stated to have declared the petitioner as a winner, as he obtained 95 votes out of the total 202 votes polled in the election, whereas, respondent No.5 could secure only 83 votes. Thus, the petitioner had secured 12 votes more than respondent No.5. It is stated Civil Writ Petition No.16682 of 2010 that respondent No.5 had been wrongly administered oath instead of the petitioner. The Deputy Commissioner, Bhiwani has filed written statement on his own behalf and on behalf of the Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary to Govt. of Haryana, Department of Development and Panchayat, wherein it has been pleaded as under: “2. That the contents of Para No.2 of the writ petition are admitted to be correct. It is further submitted that inadvertently, the secured votes written on Form No.18 (Annexure P-3) at serial No.1 and serial No.3, are by clerical mistake. It is further also submitted that after receiving the representation from the petitioner the record of concerned Village (Sangwan) was examined and after tracing the mistake the case of the petitioner has been sent to the Government for correcting the Gazette notification vide letter No.6371/Panchayat, dated 1.10.2010 and for further necessary action. The copy of letter is annexed as Annexure R-1.” It is further stated that a letter has been written to the State Election Commission to declare the petitioner as an elected Panch and a request has been made that a notification to this effect be issued. Mr. N.S. Shekhawat, Advocate appearing for respondent No.4-Ashok Kumar, Presiding-cum-Returning Officer has very fairly stated that due to the clerical mistake, the result was wrongly depicted and a request for amendment of the same has been made, in which the petitioner has been reflected to be victorious in the election. Mr. Sanjay Vashist, Advocate appearing for respondent No.5-Ishwar Singh, has very fairly yielded to the claim of the petitioner and has stated that in fact the petitioner was declared as elected. In view of the very fair stand taken by counsel for respondents No.4 and 5, it is expected that the request sent by the State 2 Civil Writ Petition No.16682 of 2010 Government to respondent No.2 to issue the necessary notification by amending the result, shall be accepted and necessary notification shall be published within a period of one month from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this order. With the observations made above, present petition is disposed of. [KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA] JUDGE October 26, 2010 rps 3