Don Alexander V. Leo Fernando

1948 Present: Nagalingam J.
 
DON ALEXANDER, Petitioner, and LEO FERNANDO, Respondent.
 
Election Petition No. 12 of 1947, Buttala.

    Election petition-Application to withdraw-Lack of funds-Matter affecting electorate-Investigation necessary before permission to withdraw-Witnesses and documents-Affidavits.
 
An election petition is a matter in which not only the petitioner but the whole electorate has an interest. Where, therefore, serious charges have been made against the respondent, it is necessary that some investigation should be made as regards the charges before the petition can be permitted to be withdrawn.

APPLICATION to withdraw the petition questioning the return of the Member of Parliament for the Buttala Electoral District.
 
D. S. Jayawickreme, for the petitioner.
 
D. W. Fernando, for the respondent.

Cur. adv. vult.

March 15, 1948. NAGALINGAM J.-
 
This is an application to withdraw the petition presented by the petitioner questioning the return of the respondent as Member of Parliament for the Buttala Electoral District. The petitioner himself was one of the candidates who contested the election, and the petitioner duly deposited by way of security, as required by the rules framed under the Order in Council, a sum of Rs. 5,000 as security for respondent's costs.
 
The ground upon which the petitioner bases his application to withdraw the petition is that "he is unable to bear the excessive expenditure involved in proceeding with the petition ". One would have expected the petitioner to have considered the financial aspect of the piece of litigation upon which he was embarking before he ventured out, and having regard to the facts that the petitioner himself was a candidate and therefore a man of at least some education and of ordinary prudence and that he has deposited the necessary security, it would be difficult to feel convinced that the ground put forward by him as the reason for withdrawing the petition is a sound one. Counsel for the petitioner, probably in anticipation, amplified at the inquiry the reason given by the petitioner by his statement that certain persons had promised pecuniary assistance to the petitioner for prosecuting the petition but that they had now failed to give him the promised assistance and that the petitioner therefore finds himself in the position of having to bear the expenses of the inquiry, which he can ill afford to do.
 
There is no evidence before mo as regards the petitioner's worth or who were the persons who promised him financial assistance, and in the absence of this information I do not think it can be said that the petitioner has made out an adequate ground for permitting him to withdraw the petition. In the Devon port Election Petition Case 1 I find that the Court direct full affidavits to be filed in regard to the grounds set out for the withdrawal of the petition. The report itself does not bring this point out clearly but the reference to that case in Rogers 2 deals more fully with this aspect of the question. I therefore direct that the petitioner should file an affidavit setting out his worth, the names and addresses of the persons who promised him financial assistance and the extent of such assistance offered by every such person.
 
Nor do I think that the filing of such an affidavit can by itself be regarded as entirely satisfactory for the disposal of this application ; for once an election petition is presented, the matter ceases to be one exclusively between the petitioner and the respondent. In fact it becomes a matter in which the whole electorate, not to say the whole country
 
1(1886) 54 Law Times Reports 733.

2 Elections : Vol. II, (20th id.) p. 185.

has an interest, and any order disposing of the application should therefore be made from the larger standpoint of the State. There were three grounds relied upon by the petitioner as furnishing grounds for avoiding th

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