JUDGMENT

1. Appellant seeks special leave to appeal to this Court from the order dated February 24/26, 1992 of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Chamber Summons No. 1179 of 1991 in Election Petition No. 4 of 1991.

2. Before the High Court, the first respondent, who was defeated at the election held on June 15, 1991, to the 10th Lok Sabha from the South Central Parliamentary Constituency, called in question the election of the returned candidate - the appellant. Corrupt practices under Sections 123(2), 123(3) and 123(3-A) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 (Act) are alleged. In the proceedings, appellant took out Chamber Summons for an order of dismissal of the election petition on the ground, inter alia, that the memorandum of election petition did not disclose a cause of action; that copies were not supplied; that the pleadings were frivolous and vexatious and required to be struck out. The High Court has dismissed this motion.

3. We have heard Shri G.L. Sanghi for the appellant and Shri R.F. Nariman for the respondents. We grant special leave. The appeal is heard and is disposed of by this order. A number of grounds appear to have been taken before the High Court in support of the Chamber Summons. But Shri Sanghi confined himself to and urged only three contentions in support of this appeal:

(i) The first is that the allegation of corrupt practice under Sections 123(2), 123(3) and 123(3-A) in paras 1 to 20 of the memorandum of election petition refer to matters long anterior to April 23, 1991 when the nomination papers were lodged by the appellant and on which date alone appellant could be said to have legally acquired the status of a candidate and that, therefore, the allegations in these paragraphs relating, as they do, to a period anterior to April 23, 1991 even if proved, would not amount to corrupt practice by a candidate. Accordingly, these pleadings require to be struck out.

(ii) Secondly, the allegations in other paragraphs of the petition are vague, bereft of material particulars and do not disclose a reasonable cause of action.

(iii) Thirdly, the copies of certain documents which were an integral part of the pleadings were not supplied. Shri Sanghi referred to two instances which, according to him, attract Section 81. One was the non-supply of notes said to have been prepared by Milind Ranade (agent of the first respondent) of the speech of a certain Sadhvi Ritambhra in support of the appellants candidature declined by her on May 21, 1991. The other was the cassette recording of that speech referred to by the first respondent in the election petition.

4. On the first point, Shri Sanghi contends that the High Court fell into an error in not appreciating the effect of the substitution of the definition of the expression candidate in Section 79(b) of the Act brought about by Act 40 of 1970 which, in effect, made a person a "candidate" only from the day he was duly nominated as a candidate at the election. Shri Sanghi says that while the old definition required that "any person shall be declared to have been a candidate as from the time when, with the election in prospect, he began to hold himself out as a prospective candidate" the substituted Section 79(b), however, did away with these words. The effect of this, says Shri Sanghi, is profound and far-reaching and renders all the allegations of corrupt practice in paras 1 to 20 in relation to a period prior to the nomination irrelevant and incapable, in law, even to amount to allegations of corrupt practice. It is urged that as the candidature could be said to have legally commenced only on April 23, 1991 even if all the allegations of facts contained in paras 1 to 20 are deemed to have been proved by non-traverse or otherwise held proved, they could not establish corrupt practice. It was accordingly urged that those paragraphs in the election petition require to be struck out.

5. The High Court rejected this contention and held:

"In my judgment, it would not be