Fulfilling the necessary formalities, including filing the required affidavit, is essential to be considered a duly nominated candidate and maintain an election petition.

( 1 ) THE petitioner whose nomination paper was rejected by the Returning Officer has filed the instant petition under S. 81 read with S. 100 (1) (c) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (hereinafter referred as the Act) challenging the election of 13th Lok Sabha from 20 Lucknow parliamentary Constituency which was held in the year 1999 in which the respondent was declared elected.

( 2 ) ON 7/01/2000 notice was issued by this Court to the respondent for filing written statement. On behalf of the respondent an application under S. 86 of the Act read with Order 6, Rule 16, O. 7, R. 11 and S. 151 of the Civil Procedure Code was moved with a prayer that the present election petition be dismissed in limine as the petitioner has no right to file the petition under S. 81 of the Act. It was also stated, inter alia, that the petitioner was not a duly nominated candidate as no affidavit was filed by him, as required, and as such he had no locus standi to maintain the petition.

( 3 ) ON the request of the petitioner and the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent the following preliminary question was formulated :"whether the petitioner has no locus standi to maintain the petition as he was not a duly nominated candidate under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and the Constitution of India ? If so, does the election petition deserve to be summarily rejected on this ground alone ?"

( 4 ) THE undisputed facts are that nomination paper was filed by the petitioner, the respondent and others to the Lok Sabha seat from the 20 Lucknow Parliamentary Constituency for the 1999 General Elections. The petitioner filed his nomination paper on 9-9-1999 and at the time of the filing of the nomination paper the Returning Officer of the 20 Lucknow Parliamentary Constituency had handed over a notice to the petitioner stating therein that in order to be satisfied that the petitioner was not suffering from any disqualification mentioned in S. 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 required him to file a pro forma supported by a duly sworn affidavit and he has not been convicted for committing any offence specified in S. 8 of the Act and to submit the aforesaid documents immediately and positively before 11. 00 a. m. On 15-9-1999, the date and time fixed for scrutiny. The Returning Officer rejected the nomination paper of the petitioner under S. 36 of the Act on the ground that there was no affidavit filed by the petitioner.

( 5 ) THE petitioner, who appears in person, submits that the right to contest an election or to caste vote in the election is a statutory right and it is not a common law right or a right in equity. The election laws are self-contained codes and, therefore, for deciding the question whether an election can be set aside on any alleged ground, the Courts have to consult the provisions of the law governing the particular election. He has relied upon the decisions of Honble the Supreme Court reported in AIR 1985 SC 1233, Lakshmi Charan Sen v. A. K. M. Hassan Uzzaman and AIR 1984 SC 309; Charan Lal Sahu v. Giani Zail Singh. He submits that for conferring the status of a duly nominated candidate as per definition of the term candidate in S. 79 (b) of the Act, the filing of the affidavit in question is not required by any of the provisions of the Act but it was required by the direction issued by the Election Commission which is a direction of executive nature and the direction of the Election Commission to file an affidavit is outside the purview of the Representation of the People Act and as such the election Court cannot look to it for deciding the status of the petitioner as a candidate. He further submits that according to the Election Commission of India itself such an affidavit is not the integral part of the prescribed Nomination Form 2a vide instructions dated 3-2-1998 and non-filing of the affidavit in question shall not prevent the petitioner from acquiring the statu