( 1. ) THIS order shall govern disposal of LA. No. 49/2009 that is an

application, under Section 86 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) read with Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil procedure (for brevity the Code), for rejection of the election petition inter alia on the ground of non-disclosure of cause of action or a triable issue. ( 2. ) IN this petition, election of the respondent to M. P. Legislative assembly Constituency No. 136 Seoni-Malwa has been challenged solely on the ground of corrupt practices. In the election, the petitioner was in the fray as an independent candidate whereas the respondent was the official candidate of bhartiya Janta Party, the then ruling political party in the State.

( 3. ) THE prayer for rejection of the petition even without entering into a full-dress trial has been made on the following grounds :-

(i) The petitioner has failed to comply with the mandatory requirement of Section 81 (3) of the Act. (ii) The annexures, incorporated in and thus forming integral part of the election petition, have not been verified in accordance with Section 83 (2) of the Act and further, there is absolutely no verification of annexures/documents at page Nos. 22-A and 24-A of the Election Petition. (iii) The affidavit filed by the petitioner in support of the corrupt practices alleged in the election petition, is not in Form 25 (as prescribed under Rule 94-A appended to the Conduct of the Election Rules, 1961 ). The affidavit is vague, ambiguous and self-contradictory. (iv) There is a total non-compliance of the mandatory provisions contained in Section 83 (1) (a) and (b) of the Act as the petitioner has not pleaded the material facts in the election petition and has also failed to give full particulars of the alleged corrupt practices.

( 4. ) IN a very short reply, the petitioner has termed the preliminary objections as misconceived. According to him, he has clearly and specifically pleaded the material facts regarding the corrupt practices allegedly committed by the respondent and has also duly complied with the provisions of the Act and rules made thereunder regulating procedure for (a) calling an election in question on the ground of corrupt practices, (b) furnishing of true copies of the petition and schedules/annexures thereto and verification thereof.

( 5. ) IN order to appraise the merits of rival contentions in a right perspective, it would be desirable to deal the grounds as raised in the I. A. , ad seriatim:-Ground No. (i)

( 6. ) ACCORDING to the respondent, since the copy of election petition served upon him is not attested as "true copy of the petition", the signature of the petitioner thereon, even though duly attested by notary, would not be sufficient to cure the defect.

( 7. ) IT is true that sub-section (3) of Section 81 of the Act mandates that every copy of the election petition shall be attested by the petitioner under his own signature to be a true copy of the petition but the report of the Registry raises a presumption, though rebuttable, that the copy of the petition as filed by the petitioner was a true copy [chandrakant Uttam Chodankar Vs. Dayanand rayu Mandrakar, (2005) 2 SCC 188 referred to]. In that case, the following observations made by the Constitution Bench in T. M. Jacob Vs. C. Poulose, (1999) 4 SCC 274, were quoted :-

" (a) the expression copy in Section 81 (3) of the Act means a copy which is substantially the same as the original, variation if any from the original should not be vital in nature or should not be such that can possibly mislead a reasonable person in meeting the allegation; (b) if the copy differs in material particulars from the original the same cannot be cured after the period of limitation. "

( 8. ) ACCORDINGLY, any defect of whatever nature in the true copy supplied to the respondent would not entail outright rejection of an election petition. The main consideration, which would weigh, is that the returned