That was why the petitioner who at the end of the third round was leading by a margin of 2205 votes, was shown having lost by 575 votes to Respondent No.
Ajudhya Prasad Singh, Q. M. Zaman, Parvez Ahmed and Radhey Sham Sah were allowed to work as Counting Supervisors at tables 4, 5, 7 and 9 in breach of the rules, and this had vitiated the companynting.
The detailed result sheet which was inter alia prepared tablewise, in accordance with the instructions of the Election Commission, has been deliberately suppressed to prevent detection of mistakes and manipulations made in the companynting.
From the Judgment and order dated the 25th September, 1973 of the Patna High Court in Election Petition No.
208 of 1973.
74, Madhopur U.P. School, 50 unsigned ballot papers were found in excess of those actually polled.
About 600 700 uncounted ballot papers in bundles were kept below his table by the Assistant Returning Officer.
K. Prasad, K. K. Sinha and S. K. Sinha for the appellant.
P. Varma, D. P. Mukherjee and D. Goburdhan for respondent No.
Such an allegation was made for the first time in the application, dated 3 7 1973.
Hence this appeal by the petitioner.
1 herein, an independent candidate, as declared elected having secured 16649 votes as against 16074 polled by the appellant, a numberinee of Indian National Congress R .
It may be numbered that there is number even an oblique hint in the election petition that any unauthorised person was allowed to act as Counting Supervisor or Counting Assistant.
There were three other candidates Respondents 2 to 4 who secured 2347, 8001 1542 votes respectively.
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION Civil Appeal No.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by SARKARIA, J. Election from 168 Katoria Bihar Legislative Assembly Constituency took place in March, 1972.
4 of 1972.
On April 14, 1972, the appellant filed an election petition under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 challenging the election of the returned candidate on the ground that several irregularities and illegalities were companymitted in the companynting of votes.
In the final round of companynting, despite protest, 600 votes were companynted twice, in favour of Respondent No.
S. Prasad for respondent No.
When this was detected and brought to the numberice of the Assistant Returning officer, he, in violation of Rule 93 1 of the Conduct of Election Rules for short, called the Rules and to companyer up the irregularity, opened that packet and inspected those unused ballot papers.
The petition was resisted by the returned candidate.
The votes rejected as invalid, were 1219.
Respondent No.
The poll was held on March 11, 1972 and the votes were companynted on March 12, 1972.
It declined the request for a recount and dismissed the petition.
The High Court framed issues, recorded the evidence produced by the parties and held that the allegations had number been substantiated.
