Judgment

ALAGIRISWAMI, J.:- This appeal arises out of the election held to fill up a seat in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, from the Sankarapuram Constituency, South Arcot District held in March 1971 in which the first respondent obtained 28,544 votes as against 28,472 votes obtained by the petitioner and was thus declared elected. This appeal arises out of the dismissal of the election petition filed by the appellant for setting aside the result of that election. Though many grounds had been urged before the High Court as well as in the petition of appeal in this Court, we are now concerned only with one ground which the .High Court refused to go into and was the only one which Shri Natesan appearing for the appellant urged before us.

2. Before the Returning Officer another candidate by the name Ramaswami had represented an objection petition to the reception of the 1st respondent s nomination on the ground that he had a subsisting contract with the Highways Department of the State of Tamil Nadu, and with the Panchayat Union, Thiagadurgam and was also an agent for selling tickets in the raffle conducted by the State of Tamil Nadu. The Returning Officer rejected those contentio