JUDGMENT

TULZAPURKAR, J. :— There is no substance in this election appeal which has been preferred by the defeated candidate.

2. Election to the Lok Sabha seat from the 13th Bangalore South Parliamentary Constituency in the State of Karnataka was held on January 6, 1980. The appellant was a Congress (I) candidate while respondent No. 12 was a Janata candidate; respondent No. 12 having polled the highest number of votes, namely, 1,98,390 votes as against 1,95,663 votes polled by his nearest rival the appellant was declared elected; 8,067 votes were rejected as having been invalidly cast. The election of respondent No. 12 was challenged by the appellant by filing an election petition in the Karnataka High Court on several grounds. None of the grounds succeeded and his petition was dismissed. Hence this appeal.

3. In support of the appeal substantially only one contention was urged by counsel for the appellant. According to him, the records which are required to be maintained under Rules 45 and 56 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1967 contained discrepancies and irregularities which showed that the entire counting process was defective necessitating a recount of the votes. Counsel pointed out that under Rule 45 the Presiding Officer is required to prepare a ballot papers account in the prescribed Form 16 (Parts I & II) in which details with regard to the ballot papers received, ballot papers unsued, ballot papers used at the polling station and ballot papers found in ballot boxes are required to be given while prescribed Form 20 contains the final result sheet and what has been urged before us by counsel is that if these documents pertaining to all the polling stations in the 8 assembly segments which constituted the Parliamentary Constituency, prepared by the concerned Presiding officers, are scrutinised two glaring discrepancies would become apparent- (i) at some polling stations in some of the assembly segments the total ballot papers which were actually found from the ballot boxes at the time of counting were in excess of the ballot papers which were issued and used by the voters at the time of the poll and (ii) in some cases less ballot papers were found in the ballot boxes at the time of counting than what were actually issued and used by the voters. It was strenuously urged that such discrepancies clearly showed that the entire process of counting was improperly done, that the prescribed forms required to be maintained under the statute and the rules were not merely inaccurate but will have to be regarded as unreliable and in this situation a case could be said to have been made out where the Court should order a recount, particularly, when respondent No. 12 was declared elected by a margin of 2727 votes. For the reasons which we shall presently indicate the contention will be found to be without substance.

4. It appears that during the course of hearing before the High Court, the Returning Officer, who is impleaded as a party respondent to the election petition was directed to prepare and file a statement showing clearly the discrepancies between the number of ballot papers issued and used by the voters and the ballot papers that were actually found in the ballot boxes and counted and taken into account at the time of counting, at all the polling stations in all the 8 assembly segments constituting the 13th Bangalore South Parliamentary Constituency and such statement was prepared and filed by the Returning Officer before the High Court. On a careful examination of this statement it appears to us very clear - and this was not disputed by counsel on either side before us, that the total ballot papers (at all the polling stations in all the 8 assembly segments of the Parliamentary Constituency) which were taken out and counted from the ballot boxes were in excess to the tune of 316 over and above those which were issued and used by the voters while the total number of ballot papers which were found less than those which had b