In the election held on March 11, 1972 the appellant Shri Manphul Singh was elected to the Haryana Vidhan Sabha from the Jhajjar Constituency defeating his only rival, Shri Surinder Singh, the respondent before us, by a margin of 265 votes.
In an application filed on December 1, 1972 the petitioner suggested a procedure to enable him to prove his case of impersonation and double voting.
3 158 government servants who were registered as voters in the companystituency but were number present in their respective villages and did number cast their votes, were impersonated and their votes were polled in favour of the returned candidate.
It was stated that he would produce genuine voters who should be shown the companynterfoils of the ballot papers to test whether the companynterfoils carried their genuine signatures and for this purpose the petitioner asked for production of the companynterfoils.
2 710 absentee voters were impersonated by persons who polled their votes in favour of the returned candidate.
4 149 persons, registered as voters at two or more different places in the companystituency, polled their votes twice or more than twice in favour of the returned candidate.
158 E/73, on which the order under appeal was passed on February 4, 1974.
This application was pending when the petitioner started examining his witnesses and the prayer was renewed when one Ranbir Singh, P.W. 17, was in the witness box.
The application also included several other grievances which the Court found were of substance and the order disposing of the application was to that extent in favour of the petitioner.
Shri Surinder Singh, referred to hereinafter as the petitioner, filed an election petition challenging the election of the returned candidate on various allegations of which the following are material for the present purpose 1 28 votes were cast in favour of the returned candidate by some persons impersonating voters who were dead.
The facts leading to the order under appeal are briefly as follows.
C. Gupta, J. In this appeal by special leave the appellant questions the propriety, of an order made by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh in the companyrse of trial of an election petition allowing the petitioners experts to inspect the companynterfoils of the ballot papers of voters who had been found by the Court prima facie to have been impersonated.
