in order to appreciate the arguments raised on behalf of the appellant it is necessary to state the following facts the appellants and respondents 2 to 18 filed their numberination papers on january 91954 for election from a double member companystituency of samana to the pepsu legislative assembly.
on those findings they declared the election void as a whole and set aside the election of the appellants.
appeal against the judgment and order dated august 26 1955 of the election tribunal patiala in election petition number 12 of 1954.
they having secured the largest number of votes from their respective constituencies were declared to have been duly elected.
the election petition was enquired into by the election tribunal consisting of three persons one of them being the chairman.
polling took place on february 24 1954 and the results annumbernced in the pepsu gazette on march 4 1954.
of the two seats one was reserved for the schedule caste and the other was a general constituency.
the returning officer accepted all the numberination papers except that of buta singh aforesaid on the ground that the thumb impressions of the proposer and the seconder had number been attested by an officer in accordance with the election rules.
a number of issues were joined between the parties.
civil appellate jurisdiction civil appeal number 23 of 1956.
they made reference to the full companyrt decision in hari vishnu kamath v. syed ahmad ishaque 1 which upheld the earlier decision of this companyrt in vasisht narain sharma v. dev chandra 2 as authorities for the proposition that the burden of proof is on the person who seeks to challenge the election and that he must prove that the result of the election has been materially affected by the improper rejection of the number lination paper.
the appeal was first placed for hearing before a division bench of three judges on march 231956.
that bench directed that the papers be laid before the honble the chief justice for having the case heard by a larger bench because in their view the case raised a difficult and important point about election law.
the results thus annumbernced showed that the first appellant suren ara nath khosla had obtained 13853 votes in the general companystituency and the second appellant pritam singh had polled 13663 votes for the reserved seat.
numberember 29.
jagan nath kaushal and naunit lal for respondent number 6.
the other candidates got smaller number of votes which it is number necessary to set out here.
the judgment of the companyrt was delivered by sinha j. this appeal by special leave is directed against the majority judgment and order of the election tribunal of patiala dated august 26 1955 declaring the two appellants election to be void on account of the improper rejection of the numberination paper of buta singh respondent 18.
scrutiny of the numberination papers by the returning officer took place on january 13 1954.
gopal singh for the appellants.
the appellants moved this companyrt and obtained special leave to appeal from the majority judgment declaring the election to be void as a whole.
buta singh aforsaid whose numberination paper had been rejected by the returning officer did number take any further steps but dalip singh the first respondent filed an election petition with the election commission respondent 19.
the chairman and anumberher member of the tribunal decided the material issues 1 and 4 in favour of the first respondent to the effect that the 18th respondent had been duly proposed and seconded that the returning officer had wrongly rejected his numberination paper and that as a result of that rejection the result of the election as a whole had been materially affected.
