The Chhattisgarh High Court was dealing with an application under Order 7 Rule 11 of the CPC filed by the respondent/returned candidate.
An application had been preferred by returned candidate that the challenges the election of a constituency of Kota assembly of the district Bilaspur.
The bench presided by Justice Goutam Bhaduri observed that, “Section 80 of the of the Act, 1951 when are read in between the line purports that no election shall be called in question except by an election petition presented in accordance with the provisions of this part. Under Section 81 of the Act, 1951 an election petition calling in question any election may be presented on one or more of the grounds specified in sub-section (1) of Section 100 & 101 to the High Court. Therefore, an election can be challenged only by filing of an election petition in the manner prescribed by the Representation of the People Act, 1951.”
Relying upon Supreme Court judgement in Jagan Nath v. Jaswant Singh, the HC held that,
“the General rule is well settled that the statutory requirement of election law must be strictly observed and that an election contest is not an election at law or a suit in equity but is a purely statutory proceeding unknown to the common law and that the Court possesses no common law power. Therefore, the reading of the Section 81 would show that the election in this context means not the general election or the entirety of the elections held in the State, but one election held in one constituency.”
The High Court further observed that the Act of 1951 does not contemplate a challenge to the election to the Legislature as a whole and the scheme of the Act is clear and the election of each of the returned candidates has to be challenged by filing of a separate election petition.
Accordingly, the High Court held that the petitioner has made omnibus prayer to cancel all the elections of the Chhattisgarh constituencies of 72 seats as void and the said election petition does not give a cause of action which can be a ground of challenge under Section 100 of the Act, 1951 wherein specific grounds have been enumerated for declaration of the election to be void. Thus, dismissed the election petition.
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