S BALDEV SINGH MANN Vs. S GURCHARAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SHRI Baldev Singh Mann, claiming that he was elected as a Member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly from Dirba Assembly Constituency for three consecutive terms and had also been a Minister in the Council of Ministers in 1986-87, having lost the election to the Punjab Legislative Assembly held in February, 1992, has challenged the validity of the election of Sh. Gurcharan Singh, the returned candidate, through this election petition filed under S. 80 of the Representation of People Act, 1951 (for short, the Act), on twin grounds, viz. , (i) booth capturing; and (ii) incurring expenditure in contravention of the provisions of Section 77 of the Act.

(2.) THE election of the returned candidate can be challenged by an election petition presented in accordance with the provisions of Part VI of the Act. The grounds for declaring the election of a returned candidate to be void and the grounds for which a candidate other than the returned candidate may be declared to have been elected are contained in Sections 100 and 101 of the Act respectively. One of the grounds for declaring the election of a returned candidate as void is that any corrupt practice has been committed by the returned candidate or his election agent or by any other person with the consent of the returned candidate or his election agent. Section 123 mentions the corrupt pratices. The Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Representation of the People Act, 1951 were amended by Act No. 1 of 1989 called the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act, 1988. Section 123 of the Act was amended and after clause (7) and before the Explanation, clause (8), namely, "booth capturing by a candidate or his agent or other person" was inserted. In the Explanation to Section 123, after clause (3), clause (4), namely, "for the purposes of clause (8), 'booth capturing' shall have the same meaning as in Section 135-A' was inserted. In the Statement of Objects and Reasons for which the amendments were introduced in Section 123 of the Act. "booth capturing" was made an electoral offence under Section 135-A, it was stated that booth capturing and rigging of elections had been on the increase in the recent past and to check this evil, booth capturing had been made an offence and also a corrupt practice.

(3.) THE plea that the returned candidate had committed the corrupt practice of booth capturing within the meaning of Sections 123 and 135-A of the Act, as stated in para 3 of the election petition, reads thus :-