JASWANT SINGH,J. - (1.) PRESENT writ petition has been filed by the petitioner seeking quashing of impugned order dated 4.4.2007 (Annexure P.1) passed by respondent No. 1-Election Tribunal, Kurukshetra whereby the election petition filed by him under Section 176 of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994(For short "1994 Act") challenging the election of respondent No. 2-Rampal has been dismissed.
(2.) BRIEFLY stated, the facts of the case are that the election for the post of Sarpanch of Gram Panchayat of Village Jainpur Jattan, Block Ladwa, District Kurukshetra was held on 3.4.2005 in Village Jainpur Jattan. Petitioner and respondents No. 2 to 5 contested the election and received votes as under : Sr. No. Candidates Votes 1 Petitioner-Bir Bhan 396 2 Respondent No. 2-Rampal 401 3 Respondent No. 3-Baljit 107 4 Respondent No. 4-Prem 80 5 Respondent No. 2-Jagjiwan 27 Respondent No. 2-Rampal was accordingly declared elected as Sarpanch of the aforesaid Village Gram Panchayat by the Returning Officer. Petitioner filed an election petition under Section 176 of 1994 Act for declaring him as elected Sarpanch, by setting aside the election of respondent No. 2-Rampal, inter alia, on the ground that votes of dead persons , were allowed to be polled through other persons, in favour of respondent No. 2 and further votes of certain detailed government servants/employees, who were, at the relevant time, posted in other Villages, were allowed to be polled through other persons in favour of respondent No. 2-Rampal and thereby corrupt practices had been indulged into, which had materially affected the result of the election, as the victory margin was of five votes only.
(3.) THE Election Tribunal after considering the rival contentions, the evidence led by the parties and the cited case law, dismissed the election petition vide impugned order dated 4.4.2007 (Annexure P.1). It was held by the Election Tribunal that the petitioner had failed to prove that votes of the detailed dead persons had been cast as it was an admitted case that all voters had been permitted to cast their votes on production of identity cards and further no grievance had been made by the petitioner or his polling agents with regard to the identity of persons, who had voted by resorting to procedure provided under Rule 48 of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Election Rules, 1994 (For short "1994 Rules"), This Rule provides that any candidate or polling agent can challenge the identity of the persons claiming to be particular voter by depositing the expenses and where such a challenge is made, the Presiding Officer is required to look into the matter. It was admitted by the petitioner that there was no demand made on his behalf for any recount of votes under Rule 69 of 1994 Rules. The Tribunal further held that assuming for the sake of arguments, if it is accepted that the named dead voters are shown to have exercised their franchise, even then the election of respondent No. 2-Rampal could not be set aside as the petitioner had miserably failed to lead any evidence to show that these votes were cast in favour of respondent No. 2- Rampal.;