Sheopat Singh vs Harish Chandra And Anr.

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 22 August, 1958

Coram: P.B. Gajendragadkar, A.K. Sarkar

In this case, the appellant had been elected to the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rajasthan from the Hanumangarh constituency in the general election held during February and March of 1957. Two candidates contested the seat, the appellant and a rival named Ramchandra Chowdhury. The appellant received eighteen thousand five hundred and thirty votes while the rival obtained seventeen thousand one hundred and thirty‑six votes, and consequently the appellant was declared elected on the eighteenth of March, 1957. On the twenty‑ninth of April, 1957, the first respondent, who was a registered voter in that constituency, filed a petition under section 81 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, seeking to have the appellant’s election set aside on the ground that the appellant had committed several corrupt practices during the conduct of the election. The respondent asked that the election be declared void. The appellant denied all the allegations contained in the petition and contested the validity of the respondent’s claims.

The dispute before this Court was limited to one specific allegation that had been highlighted in paragraph 3(d) of the petition. The petitioner claimed that the respondent had engaged in a corrupt practice by procuring and using mechanical vehicles to transport voters to and from the polling stations, and it referred to the particulars of this allegation in Schedule C attached to the petition. Schedule C listed eleven separate instances of alleged vehicle use. Issue No V, framed for consideration, asked whether the respondent had procured and used the mechanical vehicles detailed in Schedules C and E for the purpose of transporting voters. The Election Tribunal, after hearing the parties, held that one of the eleven instances was vague and indefinite; by an order dated 3 September 1957 it directed that the particular instance be struck out. Evidence was then presented on the remaining ten instances. The Tribunal first examined the allegation concerning the transport of voters from the village of Lambi Dhab to the Bholanwali polling station on 1 March 1957, involving jeeps numbered 849 and 935. After considering the evidence, the Tribunal concluded that those jeeps had indeed been used to carry voters and that they had been procured by the appellant. Relying on that finding, and without evaluating the evidence related to the other instances, the Tribunal declared that the charge against the appellant was proved. The appellant subsequently filed an appeal under section 116‑A of the Act to the High Court of Rajasthan. The appeal was heard by a bench consisting of the Chief Justice and Justice Jagat Narayan, who noted the Tribunal’s order of 3 September 1957 that had struck out one of the instances.

The learned Judges held that the order dated September 3, 1957, which struck out one of the instances, was improper because, if the instance was vague and indefinite, the petitioner should have been invited to provide further particulars. They observed that striking out the instance without giving the petitioner an opportunity to be heard was not justified. The Judges then examined the remaining ten instances on which evidence had been recorded and found that, in seven of those instances, mechanically propelled vehicles had been used to transport voters to the polling booths. Regarding the polling that took place at Bolanwali, the Judges specifically held that the jeeps had been procured by the appellant himself. With respect to the other instances, although it was proved that mechanically propelled vehicles had been employed, there was no direct evidence that the appellant had procured those vehicles. In their conclusions the Judges stated: “We thus find that seven instances out of the 11 the particulars of which were given in Schedule C have been proved. They relate to 1‑3‑57, 3‑3‑57, 5‑3‑57, 7‑3‑57 and 9‑3‑57 and 7 different polling stations. There is no direct evidence to show that the vehicles used were procured by the appellant himself except in one instance relating to Bholanwali Polling Station where jeeps Nos. 835 and 849 were used. These jeeps were admittedly procured by the appellant himself. Most of the vehicles used in the other instances belonged to persons who worked for the appellant during this election. Balwant Singh and Birbaldass out of them were his polling agents who acted as such with the express consent of the appellant. Others like Ramdutt and Chunilal were his canvassers who must be taken to have acted as agents in connection with the election with the implied consent of the candidate.” The judgment then turned to the question of whether, on the basis of these facts, the appellant’s election was liable to be set aside. The Judges noted that the issue was whether the corrupt practice in question had been committed by the returned candidate or by any person with the consent of the returned candidate as required under Section 100(1)(b) of the Act. They concluded: “From the numerous instances in which voters were carried in mechanically propelled vehicles by the agents of the appellant some of whom were quite close to him, we are of the opinion that the appellant could not have been unaware of this transport of his voters by mechanically propelled vehicles and did nothing to stop it. We accordingly infer that they were so carried with his implied consent.”

Subsequently, the learned Judges addressed a legal question raised by the appellant concerning the effect of the amendment made by Amendment Act XXVII of 1956 to Section 100 of the Act. The appellant argued that, under the original wording, it was sufficient to invalidate an election if the returned candidate had connived at the commission of a corrupt practice, but that the amendment replaced the word “connivance” with “consent.” Accordingly, the appellant contended that it was not enough to show that the candidate merely knew of the corrupt practice; it was necessary to establish that the candidate had consented to it, and that the evidence did not demonstrate such consent. After a detailed examination of this contention, the Judges concluded that the amendment did not introduce a substantive change in the law. They held that the term “consent” possessed a broader meaning than “connivance” and encompassed the latter as well as other related concepts. Consequently, the Judges restated their findings in accordance with this interpretation of the statutory provision.

The amendment effected by Act XXVII of 1956 had replaced the word “connivance” with the word “consent” in Section 100 of the Act. Consequently, it was no longer sufficient to demonstrate that the returned candidate merely knew of a corrupt practice carried out by his agents; the law now required proof that the candidate had actually consented to that practice. The appellant argued that the evidence only showed his knowledge of the corrupt acts committed by his agents and that there was no evidence of his consent, and therefore, according to the amended provision, the election should not be set aside. After a detailed examination of this contention, the learned Judges concluded that the amendment had not introduced a substantive change in the legal position, observing that “consent” possessed a broader meaning than “connivance” and encompassed it as well as other related notions. They therefore restated their findings, holding that the numerous instances of corrupt practice by agents, proved in the case, led them to infer that voters were transported in mechanically propelled vehicles with the appellant’s implied consent. On the basis of this finding, the order of the Election Tribunal was affirmed. The appellant subsequently sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court under Article 133(1)(c), and the learned Judges granted that leave, holding that the question of whether the amendment had altered the law was of general importance. Thus the appeal came before this Court.

In reviewing the findings of the learned Judges, the Court observed that the issue of whether substituting “consent” for “connivance” had effected any legal change did not truly arise for determination. The Judges had first found that the appellant possessed knowledge of the corrupt practices carried out by his agents and workers. If that had been the sole finding, it might have been open to argument whether such knowledge alone sufficed to invalidate the election under Section 100(1)(b) as presently framed. However, the Judges proceeded further and inferred, from the surrounding facts, that the appellant must have consented to the commission of those corrupt practices. If that inference stood, any debate on whether “consent” was a stricter concept than “connivance,” or whether the amendment altered the law, became merely academic. Counsel for the appellant contended that the Judges had in fact only found knowledge on the part of the appellant and not consent, claiming that the Judges’ opinion that “consent” and “connivance” were identical reduced their finding of consent to merely knowledge of the acts, thereby necessitating a determination of any legal change brought about by the amendment. The Court was unable to accept this contention.

The Court observed that the lower court had expressed the view that “consent” and “connivance” did not mean different things, and that, in that view, its finding of consent by the appellant amounted to nothing more than a finding that he had knowledge of the acts. The lower court further indicated that, if that were the only finding, the question would be whether the amendment had altered the law. The Court could not accept that contention. It reiterated that the lower court first found as a matter of fact that the appellant possessed knowledge of the commission of corrupt practices by his agents and workers. From that factual finding, the lower court proceeded to infer, on the basis of various surrounding circumstances, that the appellant had consented to those corrupt practices. In other words, according to the lower court, the appellant’s involvement was not limited to mere knowledge; it extended to active consent. Consequently, the Court rejected the argument that the lower court merely equated knowledge with consent and held that the inference of consent was a proper factual conclusion.

The Court then turned to the argument raised by counsel for the appellant that consent must precede the prohibited act, whereas knowledge can only arise after the act, and therefore knowledge cannot be equated with consent. The Court noted that such an argument would have merit only if a single, isolated incident or a few incidents on a single day had been proved. In the present case, however, the acts were numerous and spanned several days. On 1 March 1957 at Bholanwali, it was established that jeeps purchased by the appellant had been used to transport voters to polling booths; one of those jeeps was under the control of his father, Hariram, and another under his worker, Bahadur Singh. The Court found it difficult to imagine that, after becoming aware of this arrangement on 1 March 1957, the appellant would fail to prohibit similar acts in the future if he did not intend to approve them. Yet the same pattern of using jeeps to ferry voters was repeated on 3, 5, 7 and 9 March, and on several of those occasions his own agents were involved. The Court concluded that these repeated acts were not haphazard but were carried out by design, and that it was a reasonable inference that the appellant had consented to them. That inference was a finding of fact, and the Court declined to disturb it, describing the inference as perfectly reasonable. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed, and the appellant was ordered to pay costs.