The provisions of R. 17 of the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Produce and Livestock Market Rules, 1969 are directory and not mandatory. Substantial compliance with the provisions of R. 17 would meet the requirements of law.

B. J. DIVAN, C. J.

( 1 ) THIS writ appeal is preferred by the original petition against the judgment and order of our learned brother, Gangadhara Rao, J. in Writ Petition No. 840 of 1975. In this judgment, we will refer to the appellants as the original petitioner and the respondents according to their array in the original petition.

( 2 ) THE facts giving rise to this litigation are as follows: Election for the Agricultural Market Committee, Chittoor was held on 5/08/1974. Seven persons contested the election. Two of the candidates got 138 and 131 votes and they were declared as duly elected. The petitioner, the 3rd respondent and one S. Srinivasulu Chetty got 96 votes each. Thereafter as provided by the relevant rules, lots were drawn and the petitioner was declared elected as a result of the drawing of the lots. Thereafter, the 3rd respondent filed an election petition before the Election Tribunal set up under the relevant rules and the petition was allowed. In the election petition, it was held by the authority concerned viz. the Election Authority and Director of Marketing, that the votes should be recounted and at the recounting of votes, the petitioner was declared to have received 91 votes, whereas the 3rd respondent was declared to have received 92 votes. On this finding, the Election Authority held that the petitioner should not have been declared as a successful candidate. He, therefore, set aside the election of this petitioner and ordered fresh election under R. 22 (2) of the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Produce and Livestock Market Rules, 1969 to the vacancy caused by the declaration of the election of the petitioner as void. The petitioner, thereafter, challenged this decision of the Election Authority in W. P. No. 840 of 1975 and this Writ Petition was dismissed by our learned brother, Gangadhara Rao, J. It is against this decision of our learned brother that the present writ appeal has been filed.

( 3 ) BOTH the Election Authority and our learned brother, Gangadhara Rao, J. have come to the conclusion that the mode of marking on the votes viz. by putting a mark X was the only method of marking votes and that this provision of the rule was mandatory and that any vote which was marked otherwise than by mark X as required by the rules should be declared as invalid. It is after interpreting the relevant rule as mandatory that the Election Authority held that the petitioner had got 91 votes, whereas the 3rd respondent had got 92 votes. Our learned brother, Gangadhara Rao, J. has accepted this interpretation of the relevant rule and has come to the conclusion that the decision of the Election Authority was correct.

( 4 ) ON these facts, Mr. Venkatramaiah, the learned counsel for the petitioner, urged the following contentions before us :"that the election petition before the Election Authority was not maintainable, because Srinivasulu Chetty who had also got 96 votes and the other two candidates, who had got 138 and 131 votes respectively, were not joined as parties to the election petition; (2) that even though three candidates had received 96 votes each, the Election Authority scrutinised only the votes of two candidates viz. the petitioner and the 3rd respondent and did not consider exhaustively the votes of all candidates at the election; (3) that it was held by the Election Authority that, since Srinivasulu Chetty had not been joined as a party to the election petition, it necessarily followed that 96 votes received by him must be held to be valid votes and in that eventuality, the order of the Election Authority directing a bye-election after declaring the election of the petitioner to be void was erroneous because there was no question of any by-election if 96 votes were found to have been obtained by Srinivasulu Chetty; and (4) that, under Rr. 17 and 18 of the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Produce and Livestock Market Rules, 1969 (hereinafter referred to as "the rules"), no votes can be rejected if the intentio

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