Judgment

HEDGE, J. :- This appeal by special leave is directed against the order made by Sahgal, J., on May 21, 1968, permitting the 1st respondent, an elector challenging the validity of the election of the appellant to Lok Sabha from 15, Shahabad Parliamentary Constituency in the general election held in 1967, to inspect the packets of ballot papers containing the accepted as well as the rejected votes of the candidates.

2. In the election in question as many as 10 persons contested. The appellant, the Jan Singh nominee was the successful candidate. The 9th respondent, Shri Nevatia Rameshwari Prasad, the congress nominee was his nearest rival. In the election petition, the petitioner not only wants the appellant s election to be held void, he also wants that the 9th respondent should be declared elected. The election of the appellant has been challenged on various grounds, with most of which we are not at present concerned. We are only concerned with the allegations relating to the irregularity in the scrutinising and counting of votes. The averments relating thereto are found in paragraphs 13 and 14 of the election petition. They are as follows:

(1) only one counting agent was permitted at each table whereas three persons were doing the counting work simultaneously and it was impossible for one man to took into and detect the wrong acts of three persons at the same time.

Under this head it was further mentioned that the counting staff was from amongst the government servants who had gone on two months strike before the election and during the elections they had adopted hostile attitude towards the congress candidates and had made efforts to bring about their defeat;

(2) the bundles of votes of either candidates were neither properly made nor properly scrutinised;

(3) about 5,000 votes of the congress candidates were improperly rejected ignoring the protests of Mr. Malhotra, the election agent of the congress nominee;

(4) invalid votes were counted in favour of the returned candidate. The votes of the congress candidates were counted for the returned candidate.

3. In Sch. E certain figures showing the alleged improperly rejected as well as accepted votes pertaining to certain booths are mentioned. It also shows the number of votes of the congress nominee counted as the votes of the returned candidate. Neither the petition nor the Schedule discloses the basis for arriving at those figures.

4. The election petitioner is neither the candidate nor his election agent. In the election petition, it was not stated that he was even the counting agent. In the certification appended to the election petition, it was averred that the allegations contained in paragraph 12 to 15 of the election petition were believed by the petitioner to be true on the basis of the information received from the workers of the congress nominee and others which means that the allegations made by him in paragraphs 13 and 14 of the election petition were based on hearsay information. He does not and he could not vouchsafe their accuracy though he claims to have believed the information given to him to be correct. Similarly in the verification appended to Sch. E , the election petitioner stated that he has given the information contained in that Schedule on the basis of the information received from the counting agents of the congress nominee. Neither in the election petition nor in the Schedule he mentioned that the counting agents had given him the information in question on the basis of any record made by them.

5. In the affidavit, filed by the petitioner in support of his application seeking permission to inspect the ballot papers, he went one step further. Therein he averred that on one of the days when the counting was going on, he acted as one of the counting agents for the congress nominee. Hence he claims to have personal knowledge of the rejection of some valid votes and the acceptance of some invalid votes. No affidavit of either the congress nominee or his