Judgment

WANCHOO, J. : This is an appeal by special leave against the judgment of the Patna High Court in an election matter. The brief facts necessary for present purposes are these. There was a bye-election held on December 21 and 22, 1958, to fill up a vacancy in the Bihar Legislative Assembly from the Dhanbad constituency. Nomination papers for the same were to be filed on or before November 8, 1958. A large number of persons filed their nomination papers on or before that date and among them were the appellant Rangilal Choudhury and the respondent Dahu Sao. In the present appeal we are only concerned with these two. The nomination paper of the respondent was rejected by the returning officer after scrutiny on November 11, 1958. The bye-election was duly held and the appellant was declared elected by a majority of votes. Thereafter the respondent filed an election petition challenging the election of the appellant on a large number of grounds. In the present appeal we are only concerned with one of the grounds that the nomination paper of the respondent was improperly rejected. The appellant s contention in this connection was that the nomination paper was rightly rejected. The election tribunal held that the nomination paper was rightly rejected and thereafter dismissed the petition. The respondent went in appeal to the High Court, and the main point pressed in appeal was that the election tribunal was wrong in holding that the nomination paper of the respondent was rightly rejected. The High Court agreed with the contention of the respondent that his nomination paper was improperly rejected and therefore allowed the appeal and set aside the election of the appellant. The appellant s application for leave to appeal to this Court having been rejected by the High Court, he applied for and obtained special leave from this Court; and that is how the matter has come up before us.

2. The only ground on which the nomination paper was rejected by the returning officer was that the proposer had nominated the candidate for election from Bihar and not Dhanbad assembly constituency. The nomination was made on a Hindi form printed for the purpose by the Government. Unfortunately the printed form did not exactly conform to the Hindi printed form in the Rules framed under the Representation of the People Act, No. LXIII of 1951, (hereinafter called the Act). The heading in the specimen printed form in the Rules requires the name of the State in which the election is held, to be filled in the blank space there; but in the printed form supplied to the respondent the name of the State was already printed in the heading and therefore the blank space had to be filled in with the name of the constituency. The candidate therefore filled in the name of the constituency in the blank space in the heading. Thereafter the proposer filled in the next part of the form which has five columns, after the main part which says that the proposer nominates so and so for such and such constituency. In this main part, the name of the candidate and the name of the constituency have to be filled in by the proposer. In the particular form with which we are concerned now the name of the candidate was rightly filled in but the proposer instead of putting down the name of the constituency namely Dhanbad, put down the name Bihar there. So the proposal read as if the candidate was being nominated for the Bihar Assembly constituency. The only objection taken before the returning officer was that the proposer had not mentioned the constituency for which he was proposing the candidate for election and therefore the nomination form was defective and should be rejected. This found favour with the returning officer, who rejected the nomination paper as already said, on the ground that the proposer had nominated the candidate for election for Bihar assembly constituency and not Dhanbad assembly constituency. It may be mentioned that it is no one s case that there is any consti