( 1 ) ISSUES in this election petition were settled on 30-11-1988 and the case was posted for trial on23-1-89. Parties had filed their respective lists of documents and witnesses as directed by this Court and the case was taken up for trial on 23-1-1988. On that day Respondent-2 filed an application under Section 151, O. 14 R. 2, o. 7 R. 11, O. 6 R. 16 of the Code of Civil procedure read with Sections 83 and 87 of the representation of the People Act, 1951 (in short the Act ). In that application he had made the following prayer:a) that issue numbers 1 and 2 be tried as preliminary issues. A finding thereon in favour of Respondent No. 2 will dispose of issues 3 to 7, 14 and 16, and obviate recording of voluminous evidence;b)' that in view of the fact that the petitioner has not complied with the mandatory requirements of Section 83 of the Act the petition should be dismissed in limine and as that question is a pure question of law which could be decided on the material on record that should also be treated as a preliminary issue. Since copy of this application was not given in advance to the petitioner, the learned counsel for the petitioner prayed for time to file his objections and this Court granted him time to file the same and those objections have been taken on record. The reasons for making this application briefly stated are:a) There is a total iack of jurisdiction to go into Issue Nos. 1, 2, 3 to 7 and 16 since those issues relate to the validity of the electoral roll in question which cannot be challenged in an election petition in view of the relevant provisions of the representation of People Act, 1950 (in short the 1950 Act);b) The allegations of corrupt practices pleaded in para 5 of the petition do not comply with the mandatory requirement of section 83 of the Act in as much as: i) No particulars of date, time and place of any part of the corrupt practice are furnished; ii) Material averments about Annexures f1 and F2 are missing, so also identity of the person/persons who paid the alleged amount of Rs. l lakh to each M. L. A. ; iii) No proper or adequate affidavit in support is filed; and iv) No such affidavit accompanied the petition. It was filedonly on 1 3th May 1988 after the prescribed period of 45 days had already expired. C) This Court may and must suo moto take cognizance of this defect and dismiss this part of the petition in the light of the rulings 6f the Supreme Court in Azhar hussain Vs Rajiv Gandhi (A. I. R 1986 S. C 1253); (2) Dhartipakar Modanlal Agarwal vs Shri Rajiv Gandhi (A. I. R 1987 S. C 1577) and (3) Samar Singh Vs Kedar Nath and others (A. I. R 1987 S. C 1926) according to Respondent-2, if the preliminary issues are held against the petitioner and so also the second ground raised on the basis of the alleged non compliance of the mandatory requirement of Section 83 of the Act, the entire petition requires to be dismissed and/or rejected.

( 2 ) IN the statement of objections filed by the petitioner he contended among other things that the application is not maintainable since it was not filed in the proper form; that the contention of respondent-2 that the Election petition can be disposed of on a pure question of law without recording any evidence is wholly misconceived; that Issue No. s 1, and 2 are the issues consequential to Issue No. 6 and therefore they involve mixed questions of law and facts necessitating the recording of evidence and hence the election petition cannot be disposed of at the preliminary stage itself; that Order VII Rule 11 has no application to the facts of the case; that the prayer seeking the relief of striking down certain paras in the election petition on the ground that the said paras lack full details of corruption charges has to be rejected since no pleadings can be struck off for non disclosure of full facts under Order VI rule 16 of the Code of Civil Procedure; that all the particulars required under section 83 have been furnished in para 5 of t