Case: Chaitanya Kumar Adatiya Vs. Sushila Dixit &amp; Others

1. On March 13, 1972 the First respondent was declared elected to Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Hoshangabad Constituency defeating three other contestants who are respectively respondents Nos. 2, 3 and 4. The first respondent secured 13,822 votes and respondents 2, 3 and 4 got 5,688, 970 and 12,554 votes respectively. The appellant who is an elector in the Hoshangabad constituency, filed an election petition before the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur seeking to have the election of the first respondent declared void alleging that the first respondent had committed various corrupt practices and also on the grounds of irregularity in the counting of votes andwith certain other provisions of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 which according to the petitioner, materially affected the result of the election. According to the petitioner, on a proper counting of valid votes respondent No. 4 would have been found to have obtained the largest number of votes and he prayed that the election of the first respondent be declared void and respondent No. 4 be declared duly elected from the Hoshangabad Constituency. The High Court having dismissed the election petition, the petitioner has preferred this appeal questioning the correctness of the High Courts decision.

Court's reasoning:
We do not think that the High Court was wrong in refusing the prayer for inspection in this case; the substance of the evidence and the other circumstances referred to above clearly show that the petitioner had failed to make out a prima facie case forHigh Court rejected the application for amendment and struck off paragraph 5, as stated already, by its order dated September 26, 1972. In our opinion the order was a valid one and we do not find any reason to disturb the same.The case is that the first respondent paid this sum to Ramayan Mandal through Kamal Singh. P.W. 24 and Rameshwar Prasad; P.W. 25. Kamal Singhs evidence is that one Rewa Ram gave him the amount which he made over to Gopal Sahu, Secretary of the Organisation. Gopal Sahu has not been examined. Rameshwar Prasad heard about the gift from Kamal Singh. Rewa Ram who was examined by the first respondent stated that he had received the sum by money order from the State Government. It appears from the evidence that the amount in question was a discretionary grant made by the first respondent when she was a Minister of State incharge of Education. The name mentioned in the grant was Dewa Ram which obviously was a mistake for Rewa Ram; it is not the petitioners case that there were two gifts of Rs. 100/each to Ramayan Mandal. The grant appears to have been sanctioned in December 1971, not a few days as alleged but long before the poll. In Ghasi Ram v. Dal Singh, (1968) 3 SCR 102  = (AIR 1968 SC l191) this Court observed:"......The law requires that a corrupt practice involving bribery must be fully established. The evidence must show clearly that the promise or gift directly or indirectly was made to an elector to vote or refrain from voting at an election."The High Court found that the evidence on the point was neither reliable nor sufficient to prove that the grant was made with the motive of inducing the villagers to vote for the first respondent. We do not find that on the evidence this finding can be said to behave already referred to the substance of the allegations on this point. Chief Minister Shri Sethi in his evidence denied having made any such statements in his speech as alleged by the petitioner. The witnesses examined by the petitioner to prove that Shri Sethi made the statements alleged against him are P.Ws. 6, 11, 13, 15, 30, 31and 32. Scrutinising the evidence of these witnesses, the High Court did not find it possible to rely on them. These witnesses struck the High Court as obviously tutored to support the allegations made by the petitioner. The petitioner also relied on a report of the speech appearing in the newspaper "Nai Duniya," but did not examine the reporter of the newspaper to prove the contents of the speech as reported by him. On such evidence the High Court. was not inclined to accept the account of the speech as given by the witnesses for the petitioner. This is a finding which we do not find any reason to disturb.It has been held in a number of decisions of this Court, and recently in the case of Chanda Singh v. Shiv Ram, AIR 1975 SC 403 , that findings of fact in election cases will not be interfered with in appeal unless palpable errors are present.