The court emphasized the importance of unanimous consensus in the rejection of ballots and upheld the authority's decision to count the rejected votes, considering the absence of specific rules for rejection of ballot papers.

JUDGMENT :

ASHUTOSH SHASTRI, J.

1. By way of present Letters Patent Appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent, the appellants-original petitioners have challenged the validity of an order passed by the learned Single Judge dated 16.07.2019 in Special Civil Application No. 19229 of 2018 whereby petition came to be dismissed and interim relief, granted earlier, came to be vacated forthwith.

2. The background of the facts, which has given rise to filing of present Letters Patent Appeal is that appellants-original petitioners state that Market Committee is duly constituted and the committee of it is consisting of eight agriculturists, four traders, two representatives of the marketing co-operative societies and three nominees, which includes one nominee of local self Government within which jurisdiction the principal market is situated and two other nominees of the State and the total number of Market Committee is consisting of 17 members. The term of Market Committee was expiring, as a result of which, the respondent No. 2 - Director declared the election programme in which the date of voting was fixed as 06.09.2018 and the counting of votes was fixed on 07.09.2018. According to appellants, the respondent No. 3 filled in nomination forms from the Constituency of the Agriculturist and 16 candidates contested the election from the Agricultural Constituency. The appellants' panel got elected, except one Mr. Hiteshbhai Keshabhai, who was in the panel of appellant, lost the election since he secured only 160 votes whereas Mr. Rajendrabhai Rasiklal Shah got 204 votes, Mr. Bhavesh Nathabhai Patel got 200 votes, Mr. Pravinbhai Ratilal Patel got 183 votes and Mr. Rathod Natvarsinh Bhikhusinh got 180 votes. In the same manner, Mr. Ramanbhai Gopalbhai Patel got 180 votes whereas Mr. Sureshbhai Bhanubhai Patel got 168 votes, Mr. Manaji Amraji Thakore got 167 votes and Mr. Chinubhai Somabhai Patel i.e. respondent No. 3 secured 165 votes.

2.1 It is the case of the appellants that on the previous day, a complaint was lodged in respect of purchase of votes and before counting started, it was decided that if any ballot is found tempered with or any ballot is tagged with the currency note or any other identifiable marks are found on the ballot, said ballot would be rejected. The Election Officer recorded a Panchnama before the counting of votes started and with the consent of everybody, three criteria were decided for rejection of ballots, namely, (i) if ballot paper is found more votes than number of seats, said ballot should be rejected; (ii) if the ballot is found with any remarks or identifying marks, the same should be rejected and (iii) if the ballot paper tagged with any currency notes, the same should be rejected. To these criteria, according to petitioners, everybody agreed with the suggestion and it is only thereafter, the counting of votes started.

2.2 It is the case of the appellants that four ballots were tagged with the currency notes and these four ballots were rejected and after rejection of said ballots, the votes were counted and it was found that the last person who got elected in the panel of petitioner, who secured 167 votes; whereas respondent No. 3 secured 165 votes. Four ballot papers tagged with currency notes were found to have voted in favour of respondent No. 3. Accordingly, appellant No. 1, who secured 167 votes would get lesser number of votes than the respondent No. 3, who has secured 165 votes and if counted he would get 169 votes, two more votes than appellant No. 2. The difference between other candidates is larger than four votes and as such there was no material change in so far as other candidates are concerned. Mr. Sureshbhai Bhanubhai Patel is the person who is elected from the panel of respondent No. 3 and as such he would secure 172 votes instead of 168 votes, however, according to petitioner, still last candidate elected of the panel of appellant is far ahead, who secured 180 votes.

2.3 It is the case of the