- (1.) The aforesaid interlocutory application has been filed under Section 86(1) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 read with Order VI Rule 16 and Order VII Rule 1 of C.P.C. for summary dismissal of the election petition.
(2.) An election petition has been filed by the petitioner for declaring the election of Sudesh Kumar Mahto-respondent, who was elected as Member of Jharkhand Assembly from Silli Assembly Constituency, as void on the ground that the District Returning Officer and other officials connected with the election adopted corrupt practices so as to secure win for the respondent.
(3.) The case, which has been made out, is that the petitioner after the election was shown to have secured 37,966 votes whereas the respondent was shown to have secured 45,673 votes whereby the respondent secured 7707 more votes than the petitioner and thereby the respondent was declared elected. Resultantly, a certificate was granted to him, who has been favoured by the District Returning Officer by adopting corrupt practices, which would be evident from the fact that there has been difference of 174 votes in between final result sheet and the report of the Polling Officer concerning Polling Booth Nos. 4, 28, 52, 111 and 155. Further, it has been stated that number of votes polled in each of Booth Nos. 8 and 28 were shown in the final result sheet as 467 but as per the report of the Polling Officer, the votes polled in Booth No. 28 was 507 and thereby there was difference of 40 votes. Petitioner has gone further to say that certain E.V.Ms. had been replaced but those replacement of E.V.Ms. have not been made from the E.V.Ms. which have been kept as reserved and this was done to secure the success of the returned candidate.;