- (1.) Petitioner-Mohan Singh along with Iqbal Singh and Gurnam Singh, respondents No. 7 and 8, all residents of village Ghaloti, Tehsil Zira, District Ferozepure, contested the election of Sarpanch in which Iqbal Singh was declared as Sarpanch of village Ghaloti.
(2.) Aggrieved against the declaration of said Iqbal Singh as Sarpanch, the petitioner filed this writ petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India, seeking a direction to respondents No. 1 to 5 to declare him as Sarpanch of village Ghaloti as he had secured maximum number of votes. Shorn of unnecessary details, the case, as set up by the petitioner, is that there were 1332 votes in the Gram Sabha of Village Ghaloti. The election for the office of Sarpanch of Village Ghaloti was held on 16.1.1993 in which total 1145 votes were polled. In the said election, Mohan Singh-petitioner, Iqbal Singh, respondent No. 7 and Gurnam Singh, respondent No. 8, had secured 525, 523 and 97 votes respectively. Iqbal Singh, respondent No. 7, anticipating his defeat pounced at the votes of the petitioner and scattered them so that the votes could not be counted further. In the process, Iqbal Singh chewed some votes of the petitioner. Iqbal Singh was over-powered. The Presiding Officer immediately sent a letter to S.H.O. Police Station, Dharamkot informing of the incident, on the basis of which, a report was entered in the DDR. After sending the report, the Presiding Officer counted the votes of the petitioner which came out to be 515 thereby suggesting that Iqbal Singh, respondent No. 7 was successful in destroying 10 votes of the petitioner.
(3.) It is the further case of the petitioner that the Presiding officer did not declare the result on the same day and as per the petitioner's knowledge, the result of the election of the Sarpanch had not been declared.;