Summary
The Court upheld rejection of Tej Bahadur’s election petition for want of standing. Dismissed from government service within five years, he had failed to furnish the mandatory Election Commission certificate accompanying a valid nomination. He could therefore neither claim candidate status nor rely on elector status in the Varanasi constituency. His own pleadings disclosed no right to maintain the challenge.
Issues
- Whether a person whose nomination lacked the mandatory certificate could claim candidate status and maintain this election petition.
- Whether the objection concerning additional scrutiny time justified interference.
Provisions considered
- Sections 9(2) and 33(3), Representation of the People Act, 1951Applied the mandatory Election Commission certificate requirement for a person dismissed from government service within five years. (¶¶ 7, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
- Section 79(b), Representation of the People Act, 1951Held that claiming to have been duly nominated requires compliance with mandatory nomination requirements. (¶¶ 17, 19, 20, 21, 23)
- Section 36(5), proviso, Representation of the People Act, 1951Rejected the scrutiny-time objection on the record, including absence of a request and continued absence of the certificate. (¶¶ 8, 12, 13, 14, 15)
Held
- At the rejection stage the election petition must be assessed on its own averments, rather than the respondents’ replies. Here, the material facts concerning the missing certificate were undisputed. (¶¶ 4, 5, 23, 25)
- Section 33(3) imperatively requires the prescribed certificate where a candidate was dismissed from the specified government office less than five years earlier. Without it, the appellant could not be deemed duly nominated or acquire standing merely by asserting that he claimed to be a candidate. (¶¶ 7, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
- The appellant was an elector in a different parliamentary constituency. Since he lacked both elector status for this election and legally sustainable candidate status, his pleadings disclosed no right to sue. (¶¶ 16, 25, 26, 27)
- The appellant did not establish that he requested the additional scrutiny time now claimed. More fundamentally, he possessed no certificate at nomination, scrutiny, the next day but one, or even when filing the election petition, so the objection did not warrant interference. (¶¶ 12, 13, 14, 15)
Result
Civil appeal dismissed; threshold dismissal of the election petition upheld for lack of standing and a disclosed right to sue. No adjudication of the other election allegations was required.