HIDAYATULLAH, C. - (1.) THE following Judgment of the courtwas delivered by:-
(2.) THIS is an appeal from the court of the JudicialCommissioner for Manipur at Imphalunder S. 116A of the Representation ofthe People Act. The appeal arises from anelection to the Outer Manipur Parliamentary Conituency at which the appellant,who was the returned candidate, and fiveothers were the contesting candidates.THIS Outer Manipur Constituency comprised 14 Assembly constituencies. Thedates of poll were 15The 20The 24The 2 8/02/1967 and 6/03/1967 andthe time of poll was from 7-30 A. M. to4-30 P. M. THIS constituency had 219,554registered voters. The total number ofvotes polled was 1,20,008. Of these 4,166votes were declared invalid. The returnedcandidate received 30,403 votes as againstthe next candidate who received 28,862votes' There was thus a majority of 1,541664votes in favour of the returned candidate.The result of the poll was declared on 10/03/1967. The candidate who secured thesecond largest number of votes filed thiselection petition on 20/04/1967. Themain ground of attack, which succeededin the Judicial Commissioner's Court, wasthat polling was disturbed because ofnumerous circumstances. These werethat the polling centres were in somecases changed from the original buildingsto other buildings of which due notification was not issued earlier with the resultthat many of the voters who went to voteat the old polling booths found noarrangement for poll and rather than goto the new polling station, went awaywithout casting their votes. The secondground was that owing to firing by theNaga Hostiles, the voting at some of thepolling stations was disturbed and almostno votes were cast. It was lastly contended that the polling hours at some stationswere reduced with the result that some ofthe voters who went to the polling station were unable to cast their votes. It is hardly necessary to set downhere the names of the polling stations atwhich these things happened. In anyevent, these polling stations carryrather strange names and it wouldnot help to state them here. Thenet result may be stated. It was this: therewere 12 polling centres, at 4 of whichthe venue for the poll was altered. Therewere 6 others at which the firing disturbed the poll and in 2 of the pollingcentres not a single vote was cast andlastly in one of the polling centres outof 513 voters only one voted.
(3.) THE following chart discloses thebreak-up of the figures at these pollingcentres: JUDGEMENT_663_AIR(SC)_1969Html1.htm It will be noticed from this chartthat outerially affected. He, therefore,avoided the election and ordered freshpoll in the 12 polling stations.;