JAGAT NARAYAN, J.—This is an application under Art. 226 of the Constitution by one Hardev against a decision of the Election Tribunal setting aside his election to the office of Sarpanch, Indali Panchayat and ordering fresh election, on the ground that the nomination paper of Vidyadhar respondent was wrongly rejected by the Returning Officer. The petition has been contested on behalf of Vidyadhar.

2. Vidyadhar filed his nomination paper for the office of Sarpanch in form No. I appended to the Rajasthan Panchayat and Nyaya Panchayat Election Rules 1960. The form was admittedly filled up properly except for the fact that declaration No. (3) was not properly made. This declaration runs as follows: —

"I do/do not belong to the scheduled caste/scheduled tribe."

Vidyadhar drew an oblique line scoring out the whole of this declaration. This oblique line ran across the word "scheduled" of the phrase "scheduled tribe" as follows :—

^^eSa vuqlwfpr tkfr@vuqlwfpr tutkfr dk lnL; gwW@ugha gwWA

3.. The Returning Officer rejected the nomination paper on the ground that it could not be ascertained From the nomination paper as to whether Vidyadhar belonged to the scheduled caste or not. The Election Tribunal was of the opinion that the defect in the nomination paper was not of a substantial character and the Returning Officer erred in rejecting the nomination paper on account of it. He accordingly set aside the election of Hardev and ordered fresh election.

4. On behalf of the applicant two contentions have been raised. The first contention is that under the Rajasthan Panchayat and Nyaya Panchayat Election Rules 1960 a nomination paper is liable to be rejected on account of any defect in filling it howsoever trivial in character it may be. The rules which are relevant in this connection are rules 16 and 18(3) which run as follows: —

R. 16 Presentation of nomination papers.— (1) On or before the day appointed under subclause (a) of clause (ii) of sub-rule (i) of rule 14 for the presentation of nomination papers, any person qualified under sec. 11 for election as a panch and desiring to seek such election, hereafter in this chapter referred to as a candidate, shall deliver to the Returning Officer his nomination paper in Form I duly filled in and signed by the candidate.

(2) Any nomination paper not delivered as provided in sub-rule (1) shall be rejected.

R. 18 (3) "Scrutiny of nomination papers.— (3) The Returning Officer shall decide all such objections and may either on the basis of such objection or on his own motion, reject any nomi nation paper on any of the following ground, namely:—

(a) that the candidate is not qualified or is dis qualified for election;

(b) that he is not identical with the person whose number or name on the voters list is stated in the nomination paper to be the number or name of the candidate;

(c) that his signature is not genuine or has been obtained by fraud, coercion or undue influence,

(d) that there has been a failure in complying with the provisions of rule 16.

On behalf of the applicant reliance was placed on the following observations made by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Beru Ram Vs. Smt. Prasanni (1): —

"Whenever the statute requires a particular act to be done in a particular manner and also lays down that failure to comply with the said requirement leads to a specific consequence it would be difficult to accept the argument that the failure to comply with the said requirement should lead to any other consequence."

5. It was argued firstly that sub-rule (2) provided a penalty for every non-compliance with the provisions of sub-rule (1) and secondly that even if sub-rule (2) of rule 16 was not applicable to a defect in filling the form then rule 18(3)(d) provided a penalty for such a defect to which the above observation is applicable.

6. So far as rule 16(2) is concerned I am of the opinion that it only provides for a penalty for the defect of not delivering the nomination paper as provided in sub-rule (1) namely

Click Here to Read the rest of this document