MD. ABDUL BARI Vs. SIREN PALLAI AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner assails the election of opposite party no. 1 as the Chairman of the Bhadrak Municipality. He challenged this Election before the District Judge-cum-Election Tribunal Balasore and having failed, is before this Court for appropriate direction to set aside the order of the Tribunal.

(2.) The petitioner as an independent candidate with bicycle as his symbol and opposite party No. 1, a congress candidate with palm as his symbol along with other six candidates contested for the Chairmans hip of the Bhadrak Municipality in the 1992 election. The main contest was between the two, others lagging much behind. After the polling on 28-2-92. counting was done on 29-2-92. The petitioner got 10,624 votes whereas, opposite party No. 1 got 10,604 votes, thus the petitioner virtually won by 20 votes. But as opposite party No. 1 claimed for recounting, on such recounting which started at 9.30 p.m. on that day, opposite party No. 1 got 10,611 votes whereas, petitioners figure came down to 10,593 votes i.e. 31 votes less than the votes in his favour on the first counting, and so opposite party no. 1 was declared elected. The petitioner challenged this before the Election Tribunal on various grounds including the grounds of violation of election rules, absence of proper notice of recounting, illegal rejection of votes which went against him and acceptance of invalid votes in favour of opposite party no. 1 etc. Opposite party No. 1 contested the case denying the material facts pleaded in the petition.

(3.) The learned Election Tribunal held that the Election Officer had the power to recount, secondly there was proper notice to the petitioner for such recounting, and there was no illegal or improper rejection of valid votes polled in favour of the petitioner nor acceptance of invalid votes in favour of opposite party No. 1. On the over all analysis of the evidence on record, the Tribunal held that the petitioner could not make out a case for interference.