IMPORTANT POINT
The rejection of postal ballots was valid under election rules, and discrepancies did not materially affect the election outcome.

JUDGMENT :

R. Raghunandan Rao, J.

1. As part of the General Elections, 2019, elections were conducted for No. 13 Guntur Parliamentary Constituency. It may also be noted that there were simultaneous elections to the Legislative Assembly for the State of Andhra Pradesh also. Guntur Parliamentary Constituency contained seven (7) Assembly Constituency segments namely, No. 86 Tadikonda, No. 87 Mangalagiri, No. 86 Ponnur, No. 91 Tenali, No. 93 Prattipadu, No. 94 Guntur West and No. 95 Guntur East. Polling was conducted on 11.04.2019 and the votes were counted on 23.05.2019. The petitioner along with respondents 1 to 18 had contested this election. After the votes had been counted, the 1st respondent was declared elected with a majority of 4,205 votes over the petitioner herein.

2. The petitioner herein, being aggrieved by the said result, has filed the present Election Petition under Section 100(1)(d)(iii) and (iv) of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951 (hereinafter referred to as 'The Act'). The said provision reads as follows:

100. Grounds for declaring election to be void. (1) Subject to the provisions of sub-section (2) if (the High Court) is of opinion-

(a) .....

(b) .....

(c) ....

(d) that the result of the election, in so far as it concerns a returned candidate, has been materially affected__

(i) ......

(ii) .....

(iii).....

(iv) by any non-compliance with the provisions of the Constitution or of this Act or of any rules or orders made under this Act, (the High Court) shall declare the election of the returned candidate to be void.

3. The relief sought in the Election Petition is as follows:

A) Declare the election of respondent No. 1 as Member of parliament from No. 13 Guntur Parliament Constituency, as null and void;

B) Pass an order for summoning all 9,782 postal ballot papers including ETPBS in No. 13 Guntur Parliamentary Constituency and to declare the result after counting them;

C) Pass an order for recounting of the votes in No. 13 Guntur Parliament Constituency and to declare the result after counting them;

D) Award costs of the Election Petition;

E) Pass such other order or direction which the Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper in the facts of the case.

4. The grounds on which the election petitioner relies upon, in support of the reliefs sought by him are as follows:

1) 16,977 postal ballots had been issued and 15,084 postal ballots were polled and counted. Out of these ballots, 9,782 postal ballots were rejected and only 5,317 votes were counted as valid votes. The rejection of the aforesaid 9,782 postal ballots is not in accordance with Act or the conduct of Election Rules, 1961 (herein after referred to as 'the Rules'). In view of the improper rejection of these ballots, there should be a direction to validate these ballots and to count them;

2) About 4,252 employees of private educational institutions were originally drafted for election duty and had been issued postal ballots as they would not be able to exercise their franchise on the day of polling. These persons were removed from election duty by proceedings dated 02.04.2019. However, the postal ballots issued to these employees were not taken back nor proper steps taken to ensure that these persons do not vote again in the polling held on 11.04.2019. Since these persons were able to exercise their vote twice, the election process has become vitiated.

3) After removing the aforesaid 4,252 private employees from election duty, 1,763 government employees were drafted for election duty on 09.04.2019 and due to the paucity of time between 09.04.2019 and 11.04.2019, these persons were not given the option of exercising their franchise by postal ballots and as such, they could not vote and the denial of such voting rights materially affects the election which requires to be set aside;

4) The Act and the Rules provide for certain procedures to be followed to ensure that all the votes polled are accounted for and counted on the counting day and to ensure that there are no dis