IMPORTANT POINT
It is substance of the affidavit that matters and not the form.

JUDGMENT

T.S. Thakur, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. This appeal arises out of an order passed by the High Court of Judicature of Chhattisgarh, at Bilaspur whereby Election Petition No.15 of 2009 filed by the appellant has been dismissed on the ground that the same does not make a concise statement of the material facts on which the appellant relies and hence fails to disclose a cause of action.

3. Election to No.4 Korba Parliamentary Constituency in the State of Chhattisgarh was held as a part of the general elections of the year 2009. As many as twenty two candidates filed their nomination papers for election from the above constituency but with the withdrawal of nominations by four of such candidates, only seventeen candidates were left in the fray besides the appellant-petitioner who contested as an independent candidate and respondent No.1 set up by the Indian National Congress Party. The margin of victory between respondent No.1 and Karuna Shukla set up by the Bhartiya Janta Party who emerged as his nearest rival was around 20,000 votes. The appellant who polled 23136 votes then filed Election Petition No.15 of 2009 before the High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur in which he sought a declaration about his having been elected unopposed apart from a declaration to the effect that the nomination papers filed by the remaining 17 candidates had been improperly and illegally accepted. The appellant’s case as set out in the election petition primarily was that the nomination papers filed by respondents 2 to 18 were incomplete for want of a proper affidavit required to be filed in terms of the orders passed by this Court in Union of India v. Association for Democratic Reforms and Anr.1 (2002) 5 SCC 294 and the instructions issued by the Election Commission requiring the candidates to file such affidavits along with their nomination papers. The appellant alleged that while he had filed an affidavit in the prescribed format along with his nomination papers which was found to be in order by the Returning Officer, the nomination papers filed by the remaining candidates were not accompanied by the requisite affidavits in Form 3 ka (iii) thereby rendering the nomination papers incomplete, hence liable to be rejected. An objection to that effect appears to have been raised even before the Returning Officer, who examined and rejected the same in terms of his order dated 31st March, 2009. The Returning Officer held that the nomination papers filed by all the candidates were accompanied by the requisite affidavits and that there was no deficiency in the same to justify their rejection. The election petition questioned the said finding and assailed the order passed by the Returning Officer as being perverse. The appellant alleged that in terms of the order passed by this Court in the judgment referred to above and the directions issued by the Election Commission the essential information required to be furnished in the affidavit particularly whether there were any dues outstanding against the candidate towards any financial institution or the government had not been supplied in the requisite format by the candidates whose nomination papers were accepted which was reason enough for the rejection of the nomination papers filed by them and declaration of the appellant- petitioner as having been elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha from that constituency.

4. The election petition was contested by the returned candidate by filing an application under Order VII Rule 11 of CPC read with Section 86(1) of the Representation of People Act, 1951. The application alleged that the petition did not disclose any cause of action nor were the provisions of Sections 81 and 82 of the Act complied with. The election petition did not, according to the respondent, contain any averment regarding the existence of any un-discharged liability towards any financial institution or the government nor were material facts stated to disclose a cause of action.

5. The High Court