Natarajan, J. - (1.) This special leave petition, to seek leave to appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution has been filed against the order of the Madras High Court in Civil Revision Petition No. 704 of 1988 filed by the 1st respondent herein. After hearing the arguments of the counsel for the. petitioner and the 1st respondent (Caveator) we are not persuaded to grant special leave and are dismissing the petition for the reasons given below.
(2.) For an election held on 23-2-1986, the votes were counted on 25-2-1986 and the 1st respondent was declared elected, having secured 649 votes for the post of the President of the Keelpaguthi Panchayat, Kulithalai Taluk, Tamil Nadu. The petitioner and the 2nd respondent who were the other contestants were declared to have secured only 556 votes and 8 votes respectively. Besides the votes secured by the contestants, 55 votes were declared to be invalid votes.
(3.) Two days after the results were declared i.e. on 27-2-1986, the petitioner sent telegrams and registered notices alleging irregularities in the counting of the votes. Thereafter, he filed an election petition O.P. No. 7/86 under Section 178 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act before the Election Tribunal (District Munsif), Kulithalai for setting aside the election of the 1st respondent as the President of Keelpaguthi Panchayat. He alleged in the petition that the Returning Officer (3rd respondent) had wrongly treated some valid votes cast in his favour as invalid votes and a certain number of invalid votes as votes validly cast in favour of the 1st respondent and that the third respondent had failed to permit him and his agents to have scrutiny of the ballot papers at the time of counting. He, therefore, sought the reliefs of (a) setting aside the election of the first respondent, (b) ordering of re-count of votes and (c) a declaration that he had been duly elected.;