( 1. ) THIS election petition, calling in question the election of the respondent No. 1 Shivpratap Singh to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative assembly from Guna Constituency No. 27, was presented to the High Court on 26-4-1972. The Deputy Registrar (Judicial) who is the person authorised to receive such petitions, made the following endorsement at the time of receiving the petition:

"presented by Shri A. R. Choubey, Advocate for the petitioner Ramanlal, who is said to be a candidate, on this 26th April, 1972, at 1. 45 P. M. . It is accompanied by Receipt no. 31 Book No. 84994 dated 25-4-1972. Shri Choubey is personally known to me. The petition is accompanied by an affidavit. "

( 2. ) THE petition was, thereafter, checked by the Office and Reader to the deputy Registrar (Judicial) reported that it was doubtful if the petition could be treated as "properly presented" since it was not presented by the candidate himself but by his counsel, and under sub-section (1) of section 81 of the representation of the People Act, 1951 the election petition could be presented only by the candidate at such election or by an elector.

( 3. ) THE election petition was placed before Honble Dwivedi, J. on 14-11-1972, drawing His Lordships attention to the said Office-note. On this day, the petitioner had appeared before the Court personally along with his counsel Shri J. P. Gupta. Their attention was invited to the Office-note and shri Gupta, having been engaged on that very date, asked for ten dayss time to make his submissions. The hearing stood adjourned for 29-11-1972. On 29 11-1972, the counsel was heard and the Honble Judge reserved the case for orders. On 14-12-1972, the Judge passed the orders in the following terms:

"according to Shri J. P. Gupta, the presentation by the counsel would be sufficient compliance with the provisions of section 81 (2) (a) (ii) of the Act. The question of proper presentation will be considered if and when such objection is taken by the other side. In the meantime subject to any objection regarding the proper presentation which may be subsequently raised, this petition be registered. "

( 4. ) IT would be pertinent to note here itself that though the petitioner and his counsel were apprised of the Office objection regarding the invalidity of presentation, the petitioner did neither personally nor through his counsel, assert before the Court on either of these two dates that he was personally present when the petition was presented to the Deputy Registrar by his counsel and that the fact of his presence was not noted by him either due to inadvertance, or because he or his counsel omitted to disclose that the person accompanying the counsel was none else but the petitioner-candidate himself.

( 5. ) ON 16-2-1973, the respondent No. 1 filed his return. In para 18, he raised a specific plea that the petition was not properly presented, reiterating how the Office had raised an objection regarding it and the petitioner taking a firm stand that the presentation by a counsel was a proper presentation, and nowhere suggesting that he either personally presented it or was present at the time of its presentation by the counsel. The petitioner filed no rejoinder to this. On 16-3-1973, Dwivedi, J. framed issues and the issue No. 11 related to the plea of invalidity of presentation. The petitioner did not come forward with a statement that the issue would hardly be relevant since he was personally present at the time the petition was presented to the Deputy Registrar.

( 6. ) THE issues were recasted by me sometime in September, 1974, and issue No. 13 relates to invalidity of presentation. The respondent No. 1 prayed that this issue be heard preliminarily since the decision on it, if it went favourable to him, the petition could be thrown out without going into merits. The petitioner, then, for the first time, came with an application on 16-12-1974 pleading that he was present at the time his counsel Shri A. R. Choubey present