PETITIONER:
NANGTHOMBAM IBOMCHA SINGH
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
LEISANGHEM CHANDRAMANI SINGH & ORS.
DATE OF JUDGMENT13/09/1976
BENCH:
KHANNA, HANS RAJ
UNTWALIA, N.L.
SINGH, JASWANT
CITATION:
1977 AIR 682 1977 SCR (1) 573
1976 SCC (4) 291
ACT
Representation of the People Act 1951--Sec. 77--Incurring
expenses in excess of what is permissible--Interference
by this Court with appreciation of evidence by High Court.
HEADNOTE
Respondent No. 1 was declared elected to Manipur Legis-
lative Assembly. The appellant who was one of the rival
candidates filed an Election Petition on two grounds (1)
Respondent No. 1 was holding office of profit inasmuch he
was the speaker of the Assembly; and (2) the Respondent No,
1 incurred election expenses in excess of what is permissi-
ble. The High Court negatived both the contentions and
dismissed the Election Petition.
In an appeal filed by the Election Petitioner to this
Court in view of the change in law with retrospective effect
the first ground was not available to the appellant in this
Court.
The appellant contended
(1 ) The sum of Rs. 500 paid to his party by
respondent No. 1 has been wrongly excluded by the
High Court from the total expenditure.
(2) The sum of Rs., 101.50 spent for the purchase
of petrol and mobil oil was not shown by respondent
No. 1 in his return.
(3) Respondent No. 1 spent Rs. 1180/- on the
microphone. He has, however, shown Rs. 720 only in
the return.
(4) Respondent No. 1 used Jeep No. 7343 in addi-
tion to Jeep No. 194 and the expenses incurred on
that jeep are not known.
Dismissing the appeal,
HELD: It is well settled that this Court does not nor-
mally interfere in an election appeal with the High Court’s
appraisement of oral evidence of witnesses unless such
appraisement is vitiated by some glaring infirmity. In the
present case no such infirmity is shown. The evidence led by
the Election Petitioner is not cogent and sufficient to come
to the conclusion that various amounts mentioned. by him
were actually spent by Respondent No. 1. As far as the
payment of Rs. 500/- is concerned, the same is admitted by
respondent No. 1, but that was paid before the filing of the
nomination and what the Statute requires is the expenses
incurred from the date of nomination till the date of the
declaration of the result. [575 B-C, 576G]
Stray and solitary use of a jeep for visiting a place a
few hundred yards away from the residence of the respondent
where some untowards incident had taken place cannot be held
tantamount to the use of the jeep for election purposes.
[577B-C]
JUDGMENT
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 799 of 1975.
From the Judgment and Order dated 31-1-75 of the Gauhati
High Court, Imphal Bench in Election Petition No. 2/74.
Janardhan Sharma and Jitendra Sharma; for the appellant.
S. V. Gupte Naunit Lal and (Miss) Lalita Kohli, for
Respondent No. 1.
574
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
KHANNA, J. In the mid-term poll to Manipur Legislative
Assembly held in February 1974, respondent No. 1 (hereinaf-
ter referred to as the respondent) was declared’ elected
from the Patsoi Assembly constituency. The appellant, who
was one of the rival candidates, filed an election petition
to challenge the election of the respondent. The election
petition was dismissed by the Gauhati High Court. The
appellant has now come up in appeal against the judgment of
the High Court.
The respondent, who was a candidate sponsored by the Manipur
people’s Party secured 5,033 votes, while the appellant who
was Iris nearest rival secured 2,473 votes. There were
some other candidates, but we are not concerned with them.
The respondent was the Speaker of Manipur Legislative Assem-
bly at the relevant time. The Assembly was dissolved in
1973. The respondent, however continued to hold the office
of the Speaker fill March 8, 1974. The appellant chal-
lenged the election of the respondent on two main grounds.
One of the grounds was that the respondent being Speaker of
the Assembly held an office of profit in the State Govern-
ment and as such was disqualified to seek election. The
other ground was that the election expenses of the
respondent exceeded the prescribed limit of Rs. 2,500.
It was also stated that some of the expenses incurred by the
respondent for the purpose of election had not been shown
by him in the return filed by him, and as such, he was
guilty of corrupt practice. The High Court repelled all
the grounds, and in the result dismissed the election peti-
tion.
In appeal before us Mr. Sharma on behalf of the appellant
has not challenged the finding of the High Court insofar as
it has held that the respondent was not disqualified from
seeking election because of the fact that he held the office
of the Speaker. The appellant indeed could not challenge
this finding as we find that the Manipur Legislature has now
passed the Manipur Legislature (Removal of Disqualifica-
tions-, (Amendment) Act, 1975 (Manipur Act 1 of 1975). As
a result of this amendment, a person holding the office of
Speaker of Manipur Legislative Assembly shall not be dis-
qualified from seeking election to the Legislative Assembly
of that State because of his holding that office. The amend-
ing Act, according to clause (2) of section 1, shall be
deemed to have come into force on February 6, 1973. The
fact that the legislature is competent to enact such a law
with retrospective operation is now well-established (see
Kanta Kathuria v.and Smt Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Shri Rat
Manak Chand Surana(1) above amending Act the respondent
Narain(2). In view of. the above from seeking election to
the respondent cannot be held to be disqualified on account
of his having held the office of the Speaker of the Legis-
lative Assembly of Manipur on account of his having held the
office of the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.
(1) [1970] 2S.C.R. 830. (2) [1976] 2 S.C.R. 347.
575
Mr. Sharma has assailed the finding of the High Court inso-
far as it has held that the election expenses of the re-
spondent did not exceed the prescribed limit of Rs. 2,500.
According to the return filed by the respondent, he incurred
a total expense of Rs. 2,160 in connection with his elec-
tion. It is urged. by Mr. Sharma that though the respondent
paid Rs. 500 to the Manipur People’s party for securing a
ticket of that party, he did not show that amount in the
return filed by him. Adding that sum of Rs. 500 to the
amount of Rs. 2,160 would take the expenses beyond the
prescribed limit of Rs. 2,500. The said amount of Rs. 500,
we find, was paid by the respondent to Manipur People’s
party on December 5, 1973. According to an amendment made in
section 77 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 by
Act 40 of 1975, every candidate at an election will either
by himself or by his election agent, keep a separate and
correct account of all the expenditure in connection with
the election, incurred or authorised by him or by his
election agent between the date on which he has been nomi-
nated and the date of the declaration of the result thereof,
both dates inclusive.The respondent admittedly filed his
nomination on January 23, 1974.The amount of Rs. 500 was
paid by the respondent on December 5, 1973 long before the
date on which the respondent filed his nomination. The said
amount of Rs. 500 consequently need not have been shown in
the return of expenses filed by the respondent, nor could
the said amount be taken into consideration in calculating
the total expenses of the respondent with a view to judge as
to whether his expenses exceeded the prescribed limit. It
has not been disputed that Act 40 of 1975 by which amendment
was made in section 77 of the Representation of the People
Act, 1951 has a retrospective effect and was in operation at
the time the election with which we are concerned was held.
Mr. Sharma has next contended before us that an amount of
Rs.101/55 paise was spent for the purchase of petrol and
mobil-oil by the respondent in addition to the amount of
Rs. 586 which was shown by the respondent to have been spent
by him on the purchase of petrol and mobil-oil. According
to Mr. Sharma, petrol and mobil-oil worth Rs. 101/55 were
purchased by the respondent from Singh & Co., Imphal during
the dates January 18 to 23, 1974. In this respect, we find
that the evidence adduced by the appellant is not at all
satisfactory. Two witnesses were examined by the appellant
in this connection. One of them was the appellant himself,
who came into the witness box as PW 1. It is apparent that
this witness has no personal knowledge in the matter. The
other witness examined by the appellant is R.B. Shukla, PW
21. The evidence of Shukla shows that he sold petrol and
mobil-oil. worth Rs. 101/55 paise for vehicle bearing
number 194. The respondent undoubtedly used jeep NLM 194
during the elections. There is nothing in the record of
Singh & Co. or in the evidence of PW Shukla to indicate that
the petrol and mobil-oil worth Rs. 101/55 paise were sup-
plied for jeep NLM 194 and not for another vehicle beating
that number. The respondent in the course of his deposition
has denied having purchased petrol and mobil-oil from
Singh & Co.
576
Mr. Sharma has also assailed the finding of the High
Court regarding the expenses incurred by the respondent. on
microphones. According to the retrun filed by the respond-
ent, he spent Rs. 720 on that account. The case of the
appellant is that the respondent paid Rs. 1,130 to Sena
Yaima Sarma, Rs. 1,180 to Lockey Sound Equipment and Rs.
1,000 to Hijam Iboton Singh for use of microphones in
connection with his election. As against that, the case of
the respondent is that he hired microphone from Lockey Sound
Equipment and paid Rs. 720 only to that concern in that
connection. There is no cogent evidence on the record to
indicate that respondent paid anything over and above Rs.
720 on account of the use of microphones. The High Court
found that the representatives of the firms from which the
microphones were alleged by the appellant to have been
taken on hire by the respondent, were not examined as wit-
nesses and that evidence adduced in this behalf was of a
most unsatisfactory character. We find no cogent ground to
take a different view. Emphasis has been laid by Mr.
Sharma upon the fact that in the return filed by the re-
spondent, the date of payment of Rs. 720 has been mentioned
to be February 26, 1974 while according to the evidence of
the respondent in the witness box, the said payment was made
on March 24, 1974. In this connection, we find that the
bill of Lockey Sound Equipment for the hire charges of
microphones is dated February 26, 1974. It seems that the
respondent mentioned the date of the bill in connection with
that payment. No inference adverse to the respondent, in
our opinion, can be drawn from the above crepancy regarding
the date of payment.
Lastly, it has been argued on behalf of the appellant
that the respondent also used jeep MNS 7343 in addition to
jeep NLM 194. It is stated that the expenses incurred by
the respondent on account of petrol and mobil-oil for jeep
MNS 7343 were not shown by him in his return. In this
respect we find there was no allegation in the election
petition as originally field regarding the use of jeep MNS
7343 by the respondent. This allegation was introduced by
the appellant only as a result of the amendment of the
election petition. No documentary evidence was placed on
the file by the appellant to show that the respondent used
jeep MNS 7343 for the purpose of his election. Oral evi-
dence was however, adduced by the appellant for this pur-
pose. The High Court found the evidence adduced in this
conection by the appellant to be wholly unreliable.
After hearing Mr. Sharma, we find no cogent reason to
take a contrary view. It is well established that this
Court should not normally interfere in an election
appeal with the High Court’s appraisement of oral evidence
of witnesses unless such appraisement is vitiated by some
glaring infirmity. No such infirmity has, been brought to
our notice. Reference has been made by Mr. Sharma to first
information report dated February 23, 1974 which was al-
leged to have been made by the respondent to the police.
No attempt was made by the appellant to bring on record the
original first information report or to prove the same.
The High Court in the circumstances held that the appellant
could not rely upon a copy of the said first information
report.
577
Mr. Sharma then contends that the appellant in any case
can rely upon the oral deposition of the respondent when he
came into the witness box. We have been taken through that
deposition, and we find no warrant for the conclusion that
jeep MNS 7343 was used by the respondent in connection with
his election. All that has been stated by the respondent
in the course of his deposition is that on February 23,
1974 he came to know of some untoward incident at a distance
of a few hundred yards away from the place of his residence.
He went in jeep MNS 7343 towards that spot and thereafter
returned in that jeep from that spot. Such stray and
solitary use of the jeep for visiting the place of incident
a few hundred yards away from the residence of the respond-
ent cannot, in our opinion be held to tantamount to the use
of the jeep for election purpose. There is no cogent evi-
dence to show that the jeep was used otherwise by the re-
spondent for attending his election meetings or for other
election purposes.
As a result of the above, we dismiss the appeal.
Considering the fact that the first ground which constituted
the principal weapon of attack of the appellant against the
validity of the respondent’s election is not available
because of the change made in law during the pendency of
the appeal, we direct that the parties should bear their own
costs of the appeal.
P.H.P. Appeal dismissed.
578