Hedge, J. - (1.) This appeal by special leave is directed against the order made by Sahgal, J., on May 21, 1968, permitting the 1st respondent, an elector challenging the validity of the election of the appellant to Lok Sabha from 15, Shahabad Parliamentary Constituency in the general election held in 1967, to inspect the packets of ballot papers containing the accepted as well as the rejected votes of the candidates.
(2.) In the election in question as many as 10 persons contested. The appellant, the Jan Singh nominee was the successful candidate. The 9th respondent, Shri Nevatia Rameshwari Prasad, the congress nominee was his nearest rival. In the election petition, the petitioner not only wants the appellant's election to be held void, he also wants that the 9th respondent should be declared elected. The election of the appellant has been challenged on various grounds, with most of which we are not at present concerned. We are only concerned with the allegations relating to the irregularity in the scrutinising and counting of votes. The averments relating thereto are found in paragraphs 13 and 14 of the election petition. They are as follows: (1) only one counting agent was permitted at each table whereas three persons were doing the counting work simultaneously and it was impossible for one man to took into and detect the wrong acts of three persons at the same time. Under this head it was further mentioned that the counting staff was from amongst the government servants who had gone on two months strike before the election and during the elections they had adopted hostile attitude towards the congress candidates and had made efforts to bring about their defeat; (2) the bundles of votes of either candidates were neither properly made nor properly scrutinised; (3) about 5,000 votes of the congress candidates were improperly rejected ignoring the protests of Mr. Malhotra, the election agent of the congress nominee; (4) invalid votes were counted in favour of the returned candidate. The votes of the congress candidates were counted for the returned candidate.
(3.) In Sch. 'E' certain figures showing the alleged improperly rejected as well as accepted votes pertaining to certain booths are mentioned. It also shows the number of votes of the congress nominee counted as the votes of the returned candidate. Neither the petition nor the Schedule discloses the basis for arriving at those figures.;