Judgement

BHARGAVA, J. : In 1964, there were eight vacancies in the Rajya Sabha for which members had to be elected from the constituency of the Legislative Assembly of Bihar. The election was to be held on 26the March, 1964. It appears that the Congress Party put up 6 candidates out of the total of 13 candidates who were nominated for these eight vacancies. Two of the candidates withdrew after scrutiny of nomination papers and, consequently, for the actual election there were 6 Congress candidates and 5 others. Amongst these 5 others was the appellant Rajendra Prasad Jain who was standing as an independent candidate. One of the Congress candidates was respondent Sheel Bhadra Yajee. At the election, Rajendra Prasad Jain was declared as one of the elected candidates, while respondent Sheel Bhadra Yajee was unsuccessful. Respondent No. 1, Sheel Bhadra Yajee, then filed an election petition challenging the election of the appellant to the Rajya Sabha. The main ground for challenge was that the appellant had committed the corrupt practice of bribery or offer of bribery in order to secure his election. In the election petition as originally filed, Schedule I contained the names of five p