T. Nagappa vs T.C. Basappa And Ors.

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 15 September, 1955

Coram: Venkatarama Ayyar

In this matter, the case titled T. Nagappa versus T.C. Basappa and others was decided by the Supreme Court of India on 15 September 1955, with the judgment authored by Justice Venkatarama Ayyar. The appellant, T. Nagappa, was one of several candidates contesting the election to the Legislative Assembly of the State of Mysore from the Tarikera constituency. On the polling day of 4 January 1952, the appellant secured 8,093 votes while the first respondent, T.C. Basappa, obtained 8,059 votes; the remaining candidates each received a considerably lower number of votes, and consequently the appellant was duly declared the elected member.

Subsequently, the first respondent filed an election petition seeking to set aside the appellant’s election on the allegation that the appellant had engaged in corrupt and illegal practices, and also prayed to be declared the duly elected member. The Election Tribunal at Shimoga, by its order dated 15 January 1953, concluded that three specific corrupt practices alleged in the petition had been proven. First, it found that an individual named Ahmed Jan, with the appellant’s connivance, transported voters to the polling station in a service bus without charging any fare. Second, the Tribunal held that the appellant had secured the assistance of a government servant, Parameswarappa, to canvass on his behalf during the election. Third, it determined that the appellant’s return of election expenses was false and that the actual expenditure exceeded the statutory maximum permitted.

On the basis of these findings, the Tribunal declared the appellant’s election void and recorded a finding under Section 99 of Act No. XLIII of 1951 that the appellant had committed the corrupt practices enumerated in Sections 123(6) and 123(8) as well as Section 124(4). Accordingly, the Tribunal held that the appellant was subject to the disqualifications prescribed in Sections 140 and 143 of the same Act. The Tribunal further found that the first respondent had obtained the greatest number of valid votes and therefore declared him duly elected.

The appellant then moved the High Court of Mysore under Article 226 of the Constitution, seeking a certiorari writ to quash the Tribunal’s decision. By its judgment dated 11 January 1954, the High Court set aside the Tribunal’s order, concluding that the Tribunal had acted beyond its jurisdiction by permitting certain amendments and that there were errors apparent on the face of the record. The first respondent appealed this order to the Supreme Court. By its judgment dated 5 May 1954, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court’s order, holding that the Tribunal’s decision was not defective for lack of jurisdiction nor for any apparent error, and consequently restored the Tribunal’s order dated 15 January 1953. The case is reported as T. C. Basappa v. T. Nagappa.

Following this procedural history, the appellant approached this Court by way of a special appeal against the Tribunal’s order dated 15 January 1953. In the special appeal, the appellant raised several grounds. The first ground contended that the findings that the appellant had committed the corrupt practices specified in Sections 123(6), 123(8) and Section 124(4) were not substantiated by the evidence on record. The second ground alleged that the Tribunal had erred in some aspect, and the appellant’s submission continued with the phrase “The Tribunal”.

The appellant raised three separate grounds of challenge. First, he asserted that the Tribunal was in error in declaring the first respondent duly elected. Second, he claimed that the Tribunal acted illegally by recording a finding that he had become disqualified under Sections 140 and 143 of the Act without giving him notice as required by the proviso to Section 99. Third, he contended that the Tribunal’s finding that he had committed the corrupt practices enumerated in Sections 123(6) and (8) and Section 124(4) was unsupported by the evidence. Regarding the first ground, this Court has consistently held that, in a special appeal, it will not re‑examine the factual findings of an Election Tribunal where there is any evidence on which those findings could be based. The appellant has been unable to demonstrate that no evidence exists to support the Tribunal’s conclusions, and therefore the Court must decline to interfere with those factual determinations.

Turning to the second ground, the appellant argued that, once the Tribunal had found him guilty of corrupt practices, it should have limited its order to declaring his election void and should not have proceeded to declare the first respondent duly elected under Section 101(b). The Tribunal’s reasoning was as follows: it found that about sixty voters had been transported to the polling station by a person named Ahmed Jan; of those, forty‑seven were Muslim women who had voted for the appellant. The Tribunal concluded that if these forty‑seven votes were excluded, the margin of only thirty‑four votes separating the appellant from the first respondent would disappear, resulting in the first respondent obtaining the highest number of valid votes. This approach aligns with Section 101(b), which empowers the Tribunal to declare a petitioner duly elected if, in its opinion, the petitioner would have secured a majority of valid votes but for the votes obtained by the returned candidate through corrupt or illegal practices. The appellant maintained that it was speculative to assume that the forty‑seven votes would not have been cast for him in the absence of the alleged corrupt practice, and therefore no legal basis existed for declaring the first respondent the winner. In support of this contention, the appellant relied on the Court’s observations in Jamuna Prasad v. Lachhi Ram, where it was held that it would be mere speculation to attribute votes obtained by a returned candidate through corrupt practices to the next candidate in order of votes, absent certainty about how those votes would have been distributed. However, the present case differs because the Tribunal found that all sixty transported voters, including at least forty‑seven who voted for the appellant, would not have come to the polling booth without the assistance provided by Ahmed Jan. Even if those votes had been cast for any defeated candidate other than the first respondent, the first respondent’s lead would have remained unchanged. Consequently, the observations in Jamuna Prasad do not apply, and the Tribunal’s finding that the first respondent secured the majority of valid votes is supported by the factual record.

In this case the Court recorded that a total of sixty votes had been transported to the polling station by Ahmed Jan, and that at least forty‑seven of those votes were entered in favour of the candidate who was returned. The Court also found that the voters would not have travelled to the polling booth from their remote village unless Ahmed Jan had provided them with the necessary facilities. Even assuming that all of those sixty votes had been recorded for a defeated candidate other than the first respondent, the first respondent’s lead would not have been altered. Consequently, the observations made in the earlier decision were held to have no application to the present facts. The appellant’s contention was not that these votes might have shifted the result in favour of any defeated candidate other than the first respondent, but rather that they might have been counted in his own favour. The Court noted that such a claim conflicted with the provision of Section 101(b) of the Act and that no material was shown to support it. The Court further observed that its earlier ruling stated that if the votes of at least forty or fifty persons were excluded on the ground that they had been procured by the first respondent’s corrupt practices, the first respondent’s majority of thirty‑four votes would be completely eliminated and the petitioner (the present first respondent) would obtain an undisputed majority. Since no additional argument was presented to sustain the appellant’s position, the Court rejected the contention.

The appellant also argued that the Tribunal’s finding that he was disqualified under Sections 140 and 143 was invalid because he had not been served a notice as required by the proviso to Section 99. The Court referred to its earlier decision in Civil Appeal No. 21 of 1955 (SC) (C), which held that a fresh notice under the proviso was unnecessary when a party to an election petition had already received notice of the very charges that formed the subject of the enquiry. The corrupt practices that gave rise to the disqualifications under Sections 140 and 143 were precisely the matters that constituted the subject of the election petition, and the appellant had previously been afforded ample opportunity to defend himself against those allegations; therefore, an additional notice was not required. The Court also reiterated that, according to the same earlier judgment, when the Tribunal makes recommendations concerning disqualifications under Sections 141 to 143, it is exercising an advisory jurisdiction and the proviso to Section 99 does not apply. Accordingly, the appellant’s contention on this ground was overruled.

Finally, the Court concluded that the appeal failed and ordered that it be dismissed with costs.