Allahabad High Court: Three election petitions were filed before the bench of Siddhartha Varma, J. under Section 12-C of the U.P. Panchayati Raj Act, 1947 against the election process with regard to the election of a Pradhan of Gram Panchayat where Manju, respondent was declared elected.
Petitioner prayed for re-counting of the votes. The dispute before the Court was that all the three petitions prayer was different and one of the petitioners wanted to produce evidence for another petition for a prayer he had not asked for. The petitioner pleaded that before any order for recounting was passed, it had to be deciphered as to who were the voters who were dead and their names had entered in the voters’ list. Petitioner again filed an application that the decision on the application filed by petitioner had to precede the adjudication of an application for recounting. Application for recounting was allowed and was challenged in this Court where writ petition was allowed and order was quashed. Respondent contended that the petitioner ought to limit herself with the issues mentioned in her election petition and cannot be allowed to lead evidence for another election petition though three election petition were being dealt with together. Thus, she could not have asked for recounting of votes. Petitioner had submitted that her application should be decided prior to recounting thus it suggests that she cannot lead evidence for recounting of votes.
High Court was of the view that the Tribunal correctly passed the order rejecting the application of the petitioner. The issues presented before the Court were the same issues mentioned in the election petitions therefore, the order of deciding the issues did not matter. Petitioner from the beginning was wanting her application to be decided thus ought not to have an interest in the application of another applicant praying for recounting. Therefore, on finding no merits in the case this petition was dismissed. [Sangeeta v. Upziladhikari, 2019 SCC OnLine All 1786, Order dated 01-02-2019]
