V.S. Aggarwal, J. - 55-Hasanpur is an Assembly Constituency (Reserve). The Election Commission of India had issued the programme for holding elections in the State of Haryana including the abovesaid assembly constituency. The details of the programme are as under :

"Last date for filing nomination 3.2.200

Scrutiny of nominations 4.2.2000"

Last date of withdrawal of nomination 7.2.2000

Date of polling 22.2.2000

Counting of votes 25.2.2000

2. The petitioner as well as respondents No. 1 to 9 filed their nomination papers. After the date of withdrawal, only ten candidates i.e. the petitioners and the respondents were left in the election fray. The polling was held on 22.2.2000 and after counting respondent No. 1 Udai Bhan was declared to have been elected with a margin of 4735 votes over and above the petitioner. The votes polled by each of the said candidates are as under :

"Name of contesting candidates + Votes polled

1. Jagdish Nayyar 32535

2. Bachhu Singh 182

3. Ram Ratan 4468

4. Ishwar Parshad 736

5. Ami Chand 21

6. Ashok Kumar 243

7. Udai Bhan 37390

8. Karan Singh 666

9. Deep Chand 230

10. Rajveer Nayar 42

Rejected votes : 1193"

3. By virtue of the present election petition, petitioner Jagdish Nayar seeks setting aside of the election of respondent No. 1 and for a declaration that instead the petitioner should be declared to be elected. It is asserted that respondent No. 1 had filed three nomination papers as a candidate of Indian National Congress on 2.2.2000. He is shown to have taken oath at 1.20 p.m. on that date. On 3.2.2000 respondent No. 1 filed another nomination paper as an independent candidate. His name is shown to have been proposed by ten persons. His nomination papers purported to have been filed as a candidate for Indian National Congress were not accepted while his nomination papers as an independent candidate were accepted. It is alleged that the name of the candidate is liable to be rejected if he has not taken the required oath under Article 173 of the Constitution of India. Respondent No. 1 is stated to have not taken the said oath as an independent candidate and, thus. his papers should have been rejected. He was not entitled to contest the poll. Furthermore, it is the plea of the petitioner that the signatures of the proposers of respondent No. 1 i.e. Bhajan Lal, Tota Ram, Lajja Ram and Amar Singh apparently have been made by the same person and, thus, his name was not proposed by ten persons. His name, thus, again was liable to be rejected on this ground.

4. As per petitioner, the name of one Karan Singh had wrongly been accepted. It was a reserved constituency. Karan Singh does not belong to Schedule Caste. He is a Jat by caste. Details have been given as to how Karan Singh could not contest the poll being a Jat which is not a schedule caste. Karan Singh is stated to have secured 666 votes and that if he had not contested the election those votes would have been polled in favour of the petitioner and, thus, it has materially affected the result. Yet another ground taken up is that under section 38 of the Representation of People Act, 1951 (for short "the Act"), immediately after the expiry of the period of withdrawal, the Returning Officer has to prepare and publish the list of contesting candidates. The last date of withdrawal of nomination papers was 7.2.2000 but the list of contesting candidates was not published on the said date. It was published on 9.2.2000. The Returning Officer had written to the petitioner that symbol will be allotted to all the candidates on 9.2.2000 at 4.00 p.m. In this process, the petitioner got two days less time for canvassing. Due to this delay in allotment of symbols, the petitioner could not approach his voters at the earlier and about 5000 voters promised respondent No. 1 to vote for him as the petitioner could not reach them on 7th or 8th February, 2000. Lastly, it is contended that during the counting on all the booths and during all the rounds, there were about 10,000 vot