Case: Subbarao Vs. Member, Election Tribunal, Hyderabad &amp; Others

2. The facts giving rise to the proceedings with which the appeal is concerned are briefly as follows : At the General Election held in the month of February 1962 for the Legislative Assembly - Constituency of Phirangipuram in Guntur District in Andhra Pradesh, the third respondent Brahmananda Reddy and one Chandramouli, the 2nd respondent before us, were the contesting candidates. The polling at the Election took place on February 26, 1962 and the Returning Officer declared Brahamananda Reddy, elected as having obtained the majority of valid votes. Thereafter, the appellant who is a voter on the rolls of the said Constituency filed an Election Petition before the Election Commission on April 11, 1962 under S. 81 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which we shall refer to as the Act. There was no formal defect in the Petition, it was accompanied by the requisite number of copies provided for by the Act and also by the treasury receipt evidencing the deposit of the requisite sum for security as provided by S. 117 of the Act. The grounds on which the election was sought to be set aside were various and included inter alia allegations of corrupt practices against the returned candidate as well as his election agent, as also several irregularities in the polling by having the votes of dead voters recorded as well as by double voting. The petition was received by the Commission, who after satisfying itself that it was in conformity with the Act had a copy of the petition published in the Official Gazette on May 17, 1962 as provided by S. 86 of the Act. In the due course, an Election Tribunal was constituted and the petition was referred to the Tribunal for trial. The returned candidate - Brahamananda Reddy filed his Written Statement on September 15, 1962 in which the allegations of fact made in the petition were denied. Besides what might be termed the merits of the allegations in the election petition, Brahamananda Reddy raised by his Written Statement several technical objections pointing out certain defects in the Petition. This appeal is concerned either with these technical defects in the election petition or with the defence raised on the merits to the charges that were formulated in it. The merits have yet to be tried, and as regards the technical objections to the petition raised in the Written Statement dated September 15, 1962, they have been disposed of by the High Court and the same are not before us. A few days later on September 24, 1962, Brahamananda Reddy filed a further statement of objections to the petition raising mostly objections of a technical nature and of these the only objection which is the subject matter of the present appeal is that contained in paragraph 2 which reads, and we quote the materialis further submitted on behalf of the 1st respondent that the above petition filed u/s. 81 of the Act is not an Election Petition ....... As the requirements of S. 81(3) of the Act are not complied with, the petition is, therefore, liable to be dismissed u/s. 90(3) of the Act as it does not comply with the provisions of Sec. 81 of the Act ..........This second statement contained a prayer that in view of the technical objections, the maintainability of the petition might be decided as a preliminary issue as the objections went into the root of the matter.4. Paragraph (2) extracted earlier is some what vague but in the arguments before the Tribunal it was explained as indicating an objection alleging non-compliance with S. 81(3) of the Act which runselection petition shall be accompanied by as many copies thereof as there are respondents mentioned in the petition and one more copy for use of the Election Commission and every such copy shall be attested by the petitioner under his own signature to be a true copy of theshall refer later to the precise defect which was relied on in support of the case that there was a non-compliance with this provision. The Tribunal acceded to this request and by its order dated November 7, 1962, it decided the preliminary objections including the one just now mentioned in favour of the election petitioner and fixed a date for the trial of the petition on the merits.5. Brahamananda Reddy thereupon moved the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution and prayed for the issue of the Writ quashing this decision of the Tribunal and sought the dismissal of the election petition for non-compliance with the provisions of the Act. The learned Judges of the High Court disallowed the other technical objections raised, but held that the petition did not comply with the requirements of S. 81(3) of the Act and for this reason they directed the dismissal of the Election Petition. The appellant thereafter has filed this appeal after obtaining special leave from this Court.

Reasoning:
14. We are not impressed by this argument. When S. 81(3) requires an election petition to be accompanied by the requisite number of copies, it becomes a requirement for the presentation of the election petition to the Commission, and therefore a condition precedent for the proper presentation of an election petition. If that is a requirement of S. 81, no distinction can be drawn between the requirements of sub-sections (1) and (2) and of sub-sec. (3). We might add that if there is a total and complete non-compliance with the provisions of S. 81(3), the election petition might not be "an election petition presented in accordance with the provisions of this Part" within S. 80 of the Act. We are therefore inclined to consider that if there had been such a non-compliance with the requirement of sub-sec. (3) not merely the Election Commission under S. 85 but the Election Tribunal under S. 90(3) would prima facie not merely be justified but would be required to dismiss the electiondo not however consider that there is really need for so much refinement when one to look at whether there is a substantial compliance with the requirement of this provision. If the signatures now found on the copies were intended to authenticate the document to which it is appended viz., the copy, it would only mean that the copy did not reproduce the signature in the original.There is no compelling necessity to hold that the signatures were merely intended to be a copy of those on the original in order to spell out a non-compliance with S. 81(3), seeing that a signature in original was not needed on the copy and a writing copying out the name of the signatory would suffice. The decision of this Court in Murarkas case, C. A. Nos. 30 and 31 of 1963 D/- 7-5-1963 (SC) is authority for the position that the absence of a writing in the copy indicating the signature in the original would not detract the copy from being a true copy. In the circumstances, we consider that there has been substantial compliance with the requirement of S. 81 (3) in the petition that was filed by the appellant and the learned Judges were in error in directing the dismissal of the petition.