Shri Balwan Singh vs Shri Lakshmi Narain and Others

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Civil Appeal No. 411 of 1959

Decision Date: 23 February, 1960

Coram: J.C. Shah, Bhuvneshwar P. Sinha, Syed Jaffer Imam, A.K. Sarkar, K.N. Wanchoo

In this case the matter was titled Shri Balwan Singh versus Shri Lakshmi Narain and Others and was decided on 23 February 1960 by the Supreme Court of India. The judgment was authored by Justice C. J. Shah and the bench comprised Justices C. J. Shah, Bhuvneshwar P. Sinha, Syed Jaffer Imam, A. K. Sarkar, and K. N. Wanchoo. The petitioner was Shri Balwan Singh and the respondents were Shri Lakshmi Narain together with several others. The citation for the decision is reported in 1960 AIR 770 and 1960 SCR (3) 91. Subsequent citations include various reports such as RF 1972 SC1302, R 1975 SC 290, R 1975 SC 667, and others. The case concerned an election petition filed under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, specifically sections 83(1)(b), 90(3) and 123(5), and involved the alleged corrupt practice of hiring a vehicle for the conveyance of electors.

The first respondent filed an election petition seeking a declaration that the election of the appellant was void. The petition alleged that the appellant had engaged in a corrupt practice under section 123(5) by hiring a tractor to transport women voters from their homes to the polling station and back. By way of an amendment, the first respondent supplied particulars regarding the conveyance of voters but did not provide any details of the hiring contract itself, and the appellant did not request such particulars. At the trial the first respondent presented evidence concerning the hiring contract, and the appellant raised no objection to the relevance of that evidence. The Election Tribunal dismissed the petition, but on appeal the High Court held that the charge was proved and consequently declared the appellant’s election void. The appellant contended that the petition should have been dismissed because it lacked the essential particulars of the hiring contract, which he argued were an indispensable element of the alleged corrupt practice.

The Court held, with agreement from Justices Sinha, Imam, Wanchoo and Shah, that the corrupt practice under section 123(5) was limited to the act of conveying electors to and from the polling station, and did not require the contract of hiring to be specified. Accordingly, when an election petition provides particulars about the use of a vehicle for such conveyance, the omission of the hiring contract details does not render the petition defective. An election petition is not liable to be dismissed at the outset merely because full particulars of the alleged corrupt practice are not set out. If an objection is raised and the Tribunal believes that the particulars are insufficient, the petitioner must be given an opportunity to amend or amplify those particulars. Only when a party fails to comply with an order to supply the required particulars may the charge be struck out as remaining vague. In the present case, no material prejudice was caused to the appellant by the absence of the contract particulars, and therefore the petition could not be dismissed on that ground.

In the case before the Court, it was observed that a charge which remained vague could be struck out. However, the Court found that in the present matter no material prejudice had been caused to the appellant by the lack of details concerning the contract of hiring. Justice Sarkar explained that under section 123(5) the hiring of a vehicle for the conveyance of electors formed an essential element of the corrupt practice, and therefore it was necessary to furnish particulars of the hiring contract. Nonetheless, the failure to provide such particulars did not render the election petition liable to dismissal. The Court noted that section 83 of the Representation of the People Act did not contain any provision authorising the dismissal of a petition for failure to furnish particulars, and that section 90(3) did not empower the Tribunal to dismiss a petition for non‑compliance with the requirements of section 83. The appellant had the right to apply for the missing particulars, but he chose not to do so, and consequently he could not later complain about their absence.

The judgment was recorded in the civil appellate jurisdiction in Civil Appeal No. 411 of 1959, filed by special leave against the order dated 9 January 1959 of the Allahabad High Court in First Appeal No. 448/A of 1958. Counsel for the appellant comprised L. K. Jha, P. Rama Reddy, R. K. Garg and R. Patnaik, while the respondents were represented by G. S. Pathak, G. N. Dikshit, Udai Pratap Singh, J. P. Goval, M. S. Gupta and P. C. Aggarwala. The judgment was delivered on 23 February 1960. The judgment of the senior judges, Sinha, C. J., Imam, Wanchoo and Shah, was read by Justice Shah, and Justice Sarkar delivered a separate opinion. The facts of the election were that three candidates—Balwan Singh (the appellant), Ram Dulari and Gaya Prasad—contested the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly seat from Akbarpur Rural Assembly Constituency No. 6 in the 1957 general elections. Polling occurred on 28 February 1957 and the results were declared on 2 March 1957, with the appellant securing the highest number of votes and being declared duly elected. A voter, Lakshmi Narain (the first respondent), filed an application before the Election Commission seeking to declare the appellant’s election void on the ground that the appellant, his election agent or other persons acting with his consent had engaged in corrupt practices that materially affected the result. In clause (f) of paragraph 9 of the petition, the first respondent alleged that in the villages listed in Annexure D, the appellant, his agents and workers, with his consent, hired and procured bullock carts and tractors to convey women electors to and from the polling station. Annexure D contained a list of thirty villages. The election petition was referred to the District Judge of Kanpur, who acted as the Election Tribunal. The appellant, in his written statement, denied the allegations contained in clause (f) of paragraph 9.

In the proceedings, the appellant contended that the allegations set out in clause (f) of paragraph 9 were false. He asserted that neither he nor his agents or workers had ever hired or procured bullock carts or trucks for the purpose of transporting women voters from the villages listed in Annexure D, or from any other village, to the polling station. The appellant further argued that the first respondent had failed to disclose the names of the voters involved as well as the details of the conveyances, and that, because the pleading was defective, the respondent could not be permitted to challenge the appellant’s election on that ground. On 15 July 1957, the first respondent filed an application seeking leave to enlarge the particulars set out in the various clauses of paragraph 9, including the particulars in clause (f), and prayed for permission to amend the recitals in that clause by incorporating Annexure D‑1 into the petition. Annexure D‑1 contained information on the type of vehicles used, the names of the vehicle owners, the villages from which women voters were conveyed at the appellant’s expense to the polling station and back, the hire paid, and a description of the families to which the conveyed women voters belonged. In response, the appellant submitted a rejoinder stating that, by the application, the first respondent was in substance seeking to introduce fresh allegations of corrupt practices rather than merely amplifying the particulars already given, and he prayed that several clauses, including clause (f) of paragraph 9, be deleted. On 29 July 1957, the Election Tribunal rejected the first respondent’s application. The Tribunal observed that merely stating that the corrupt practice occurred in the villages named in Annexure D did not satisfy the requirement of furnishing particulars as mandated by Section 83(1)(b) of the Representation of the People Act, and consequently directed that certain paragraphs, including clause (f) of paragraph 9 and Annexure D, be struck out. Relying on a judgment of the Allahabad High Court delivered on 9 September 1957 in Mubarak Mazdoor v. K. K. Banerji and another, which described the approach to be taken when allegations of corrupt practices in an election petition were vague, the first respondent applied for a review of the Tribunal’s order. By an order dated 13 September 1957, the Election Tribunal accepted the first respondent’s plea for review and directed that the earlier order of 29 July 1957 be set aside. The appellant then filed an application under Article 227 of the Constitution before the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, challenging the correctness and propriety of the Tribunal’s order reviewing its earlier order of 29 July 1957. By its order dated 6 March 1958, the High Court substantially confirmed the Tribunal’s order. The High Court held that the Tribunal possessed jurisdiction to review its earlier order and that, given the circumstances of the case, it was unnecessary to determine whether the order of 13 September 1957 had been properly passed, because the order of 29 July 1957 was “unjust and improper,” and, in a proceeding under Article 227, the High Court was empowered to rectify the error by setting aside the earlier order.

In the proceeding before the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, the Court noted that the order dated 29 July 1957 had been characterized by the Tribunal as “unjust and improper.” Because the matter was now before the High Court under article 227 of the Constitution, the Court held that it possessed the authority to correct the error by setting aside the earlier order. Consequently, the High Court directed that the allegations recorded in clause (f) of paragraph 9 be restored and that annexure D‑1 be incorporated into the petition.

Following the High Court’s order, the Election Tribunal issued an order on 16 August 1958 in which it dismissed the petition. The Tribunal found that the first respondent had failed to establish the corrupt practices on which the petition was founded. Specifically, regarding the alleged corrupt practice set out in clause (f) of paragraph 9, the Tribunal observed that section 123(5) of the Representation of the People Act defines the corrupt practice as the hiring or procuring of a vehicle or vessel by a candidate or his agent for the conveyance of electors, and that the mere act of transporting voters does not itself constitute the corrupt practice. The Tribunal held that the petition did not disclose the particulars of the hiring or procuring of the vehicles, and that the evidence presented by the first respondent in support of the claim of hiring or procuring vehicles was unsatisfactory. Accordingly, the Tribunal concluded that the first respondent’s allegation that the appellant had committed a corrupt practice remained unsubstantiated.

The appellant then appealed to the High Court under section 116A of the Representation of the People Act against the Tribunal’s order. The High Court set aside the Tribunal’s order and declared the appellant’s election void. The Court found that the petition was defective because it omitted the date and place of the hiring of the tractor that was alleged to have been used for conveying voters to the polling station. Nevertheless, the Court held that this omission did not cause any prejudice to the appellant. The Court relied upon the testimony of A. P. Malik, the presiding officer at the Naholi polling station, which was corroborated by exhibit 22, a petition dated on the polling day submitted by Raghuraj Singh, an agent of Ram Dulari, a contesting candidate. The evidence of witnesses Kalika Prasad and another witness named Raghuraj Singh further established that voters were conveyed in a trailer attached to a tractor at the instance of the appellant to the Naholi polling station. Additionally, the testimony of Hanuman Singh proved that a contract had been entered into for hiring the tractor used for the conveyance. On the basis of these findings, the High Court held that the appellant had indeed committed the corrupt practice of hiring a vehicle for transporting voters to the polling station.

The appellant subsequently filed a special leave petition challenging the High Court’s order that declared his election void. Section 83(1)(b) of the Representation of the People Act, as amended, requires that an election petition set out the full particulars of any alleged corrupt practice, including a complete statement of the names of the parties alleged to have committed the practice and the date and place of each such practice. The present appeal therefore raises the question of compliance with that statutory requirement.

In this case, the Court noted that Section 83(1)(b) of the Representation of the People Act, as amended, required an election petition to set forth full particulars of any corrupt practice alleged. The provision demanded, as completely as possible, the names of the parties alleged to have committed the corrupt practice and the date and place of the commission of each such practice. Section 123 of the same Act listed the matters that would be deemed corrupt practices for the purposes of the legislation, and clause (5) of that section, as it stood on the material date, specified that hiring or procuring any vehicle or vessel by a candidate, his agent, or any other person for the conveyance of any elector—other than the candidate himself, members of his family, or his agent—to or from a polling station or a place fixed under subsection (1) of Section 29 amounted to a corrupt practice. The Court observed that the petition, whether in its original form or as amended, failed to disclose the date and place at which the tractor alleged to have been used for transporting voters was hired, nor did it identify the persons between whom the hiring contract was concluded. The issue that then required determination was whether the election petition should be rejected on the ground that it omitted the particulars of the date and place of hiring the vehicle that was alleged to have been employed in conveying voters.

The High Court, after examining the matter, concluded that because the corrupt practice described in Section 123(5) comprised the hiring or procuring of a vehicle for the purpose of moving voters to the polling station, the absence of a detailed statement of the time and location of the hiring rendered the petition defective. In reaching this conclusion, the High Court relied upon an earlier decision of the same Court, Madan Lal v. Syed Zargham Haider and others. In that precedent, Justice Bhargava, delivering the judgment of the Court, observed:

“…under Section 123(5) of the Representation of the People Act, a corrupt practice consists in the act of hiring or procuring certain types of vehicles by a candidate or his agent or by any other person for the conveyance of any elector to or from any polling station. A corrupt practice is, therefore, … committed not by conveying the voter but by the act of hiring or procuring the conveyance. In clause (b) of Section 83(1), an election petitioner is required to set forth full particulars of the corrupt practice including as full a statement as possible of the names of the parties alleged to have committed such corrupt practice and the date and place of the commission of each such practice. The language used in this provision of law requires the setting forth of the full particulars of the corrupt practice and specially mentions at least three particulars which must be given. These are the names of the parties alleged to have committed the corrupt practice, the date when the corrupt practice was committed and the place of the commission of the corrupt practice.”

In this case, the Court observed that Section 123(5) characterised the act of hiring a vehicle for transporting electors to or from a polling station as a corrupt practice. It held that a petition which set out the details of the vehicle’s use—including the time and place of the conveyance—and which, as far as possible, stated that the vehicle had been hired or procured by the candidate, the candidate’s agent, or another person, substantially satisfied the requirement of Section 83(1)(b). While assessing whether the corrupt practice described in Section 123(5) had been committed, the Court said that the conveyance of electors could not be separated from the hiring of the vehicle, because the corrupt practice was precisely the hiring or procuring of the vehicle for that purpose. Consequently, if the petition provided full particulars of the conveyance of electors to or from any polling station, the requirements of Section 83 were deemed to be met even when the particulars of the hiring contract itself were omitted. The Court noted that the arrangement for hiring or procuring a vehicle ordinarily fell within the special knowledge of the parties to that agreement, and it would be unreasonable to require the petitioner in an election dispute to disclose facts that were known only to the other party. To impose a penalty of dismissal on a petition for lacking such contract details would be inappropriate. The Court further explained that when the petition set out particulars supporting the claim that the vehicle had been hired or procured for the conveyance of voters, the absence of specific contract details would not render the petition defective. Under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, as amended by Act 27 of 1956, there was no provision for dismissing a petition or striking out a corrupt‑practice plea solely because such particulars were not included. Section 90, clause (5) of the Act authorised the Tribunal to permit amendment or amplification of any corrupt‑practice particulars alleged in the petition in a manner it considered necessary to ensure a fair and effective trial. Moreover, Section 90(1) required that every election petition be tried, subject to the Act and its Rules, as nearly as possible in accordance with the procedure applicable under the Civil Procedure Code for suit trials; the Tribunal could only strike out a defective plea after ordering the petitioner to furnish the required particulars and the petitioner’s failure to comply with that order. The Court therefore laid down the practice to be followed when an election petition contained insufficient particulars of a corrupt practice, stating that an election petition was not liable to be dismissed in limine merely because

In this case the Court observed that a petition is not required to contain full particulars of a corrupt practice at the time of filing, but when the respondent objects on the ground that the petition is defective for lacking such details, the Tribunal must examine the merit of that objection. If the Tribunal finds the objection to be well‑founded, it is obligated to grant the petitioner an opportunity to seek leave to amend or to amplify the insufficient particulars; should the petitioner fail to comply with that direction, the Tribunal may strike out the vague charges. The Court emphasized that demanding complete particulars of alleged corrupt practices is of paramount importance for the fair trial of an election petition, yet it held that once the parties have proceeded to trial despite the absence of full particulars and the opposing parties have presented evidence on the pleaded issue, the petition cannot subsequently be dismissed merely for lack of particulars because the defect concerns procedure rather than the Tribunal’s jurisdiction to decide the plea without full particulars. The appellate court, however, may set aside the Tribunal’s judgment if it is satisfied that material prejudice arose from the missing particulars, and the Court noted that any failure to raise or press the objection before the trial must be given due weight in assessing prejudice. Applying this principle to the matter before it, the Court assumed that the petition was defective because it did not state the names of the parties to the hiring contract, nor the date and place of that contract. The High Court, the Court held, was correct in concluding that no material prejudice resulted from this omission. The original written statement to the petition did not expressly claim that the lack of names, dates, or places prevented the appellant from meeting the charges. Moreover, even after the petition was amended, the appellant raised no objection on that ground. At the Tribunal’s hearing, a plea was apparently made that the petition was defective for the same lack of particulars, but all evidence concerning the hiring arrangement and its time and place was admitted without objection. No suggestion was made that the appellant was embarrassed in his defence or unable to adduce relevant evidence because of the missing particulars. Consequently, the Court could not find that any material prejudice was caused by the absence of those particulars, and it therefore affirmed the order of the Tribunal rejecting the objection.

In the present case, the first respondent had moved that the particulars of the corrupt practice alleged in the election petition should be amplified. The Court held that this application was erroneous for the reasons that had already been explained earlier in the judgment. Consequently, the Court stated that it was unnecessary to decide whether the High Court had misdirected itself by holding itself bound at the hearing of the appeal by virtue of its earlier judgment delivered in the writ petition. The counsel for the appellant argued that, irrespective of the foregoing, the High Court was not justified in departing from the considered judgment of the Tribunal on matters that involved only the appreciation of evidence. The appeal, however, was entertained only because special leave had been granted under Article 136 of the Constitution. The Court explained that the established practice is to grant such leave only when the case presents exceptional and special circumstances, or when substantial and grave injustice has been inflicted, thereby giving the matter sufficient gravity to merit a review of the challenged decision. The Court further clarified that the mere grant of special leave does not open the entire case for fresh argument, and the appellant cannot freely dispute the factual findings of the subordinate tribunals. Only the points that formed the basis for the grant of leave may be raised at the final hearing, and ordinarily the Court does not entertain a special‑leave petition on the ground of an error in appreciating evidence by the lower courts. On that basis, the Court found sufficient ground to refuse to consider the argument advanced by the appellant’s counsel, while noting that even upon a fresh review of the evidence the High Court’s conclusion appeared correct.

The evidence before the Tribunal included the testimony of Mr A P Malik, who served as the Presiding Officer at the Naholi polling station. He stated that on the day of polling he observed a tractor standing at a distance of one hundred to one‑hundred‑and‑fifty yards from the polling booth. He further testified that he did not recall seeing any flag or poster on the tractor. Nevertheless, Mr Malik had recorded in his diary an application submitted to him by a person named Raghuraj Singh, identified in the proceedings as PW 30. A copy of that application was produced, and it recounted that a tractor had approached the polling booth and been parked near “the line of voters.” The application described that a number of persons, the majority of whom were women, were seated on the tractor; that a red flag was hoisted; that posters of the Socialist Party were affixed to the tractor; and that some individuals who arrived on the tractor were subsequently placed in the voters’ queue. Additional testimony was given by Raghuraj Singh himself, identified as PW 38 and a voter in the constituency. He affirmed that he saw a tractor belonging to Chandra Bahadur Pandey of the village Chapargatha near the polling station, observed a red flag hoisted on it, and noted that posters had been pasted over the tractor.

In this case, the Court noted that the tractor that had been taken to the Naholi polling station bore a red flag displaying the emblem of a banyan tree, which was the election symbol of the appellant’s party. The witness further recounted that a man named Kalika Prasad together with several female members of his family had arrived on the trailer, and that an individual identified as Radhey Shyam, who acted as an agent of the appellant, had taken all of these voters and handed them slips of paper. Kalika Prasad was also examined; he affirmed that he, his wife and a number of other villagers had traveled to the Naholi polling station on the trailer attached to the tractor in order to cast their votes, that a red flag had been hoisted on the trailer, that posters had been affixed to it, and that those posters contained a caption urging voters to cast their ballots in favour of the appellant.

The Court found that the presence of a tractor at the Naholi polling station on the day of voting was established by unimpeachable evidence. The Tribunal had accepted the testimony of Mr Malik in this regard, while it had rejected the statements of other witnesses on the basis that their theories appeared fanciful. The Tribunal had observed that, at the material time, no tractor had been brought near the polling booth, and it had suggested that if a tractor had indeed been brought, the owner might simply have offered a free lift to voters to and from the polling station, or that the tractor might have been brought without the knowledge or consent of the appellant or his agents. Nevertheless, the Court held that the fact of the tractor’s presence was clearly proved by Mr Malik’s evidence, and that the carriage of the appellant’s party red flag on the tractor was corroborated by the testimonies of the two witnesses identified as Raghuraj Singh (PW 30 and PW 38) as well as by Kalika Prasad’s evidence.

In addition, the Court affirmed that the posters displayed on the tractor bore the banyan‑tree symbol, which was the election emblem of the appellant’s party at the relevant election. There was, according to the Court, no sufficient reason to discard this testimony. The Court also considered the evidence of Hanuman Singh (PW 56), who declared that he had been present when the bargain for hiring Chandra Bahadur’s tractor for transporting voters was concluded. The High Court had accepted this evidence, and the Court found no error in that assessment when viewed in the context of the other evidence.

Consequently, the Court concluded that the appeal failed and dismissed it with costs. Justice Sarkar agreed with this conclusion, noting that the appellant had been declared elected. The first respondent had filed an election petition under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, seeking to have the appellant’s election declared void on the ground that the appellant had engaged in a corrupt practice. The petition alleged, in substantive terms, that in the villages listed in Annexure D the appellant had hired a tractor to convey women electors from their homes to the polling places and back. The appellant had applied to have this allegation struck out on the basis that it did not contain sufficient particulars of the alleged corrupt practice.

The respondent claimed that the election petition lacked sufficient particulars of the alleged corrupt practice and therefore sought the Court’s permission to supply those particulars by amending his petition. He proposed to replace the existing annexure D with a new annexure marked DI. Initially, the Election Tribunal issued an order refusing the amendment and, in accordance with the appellant’s request, struck out the allegation of corrupt practice. Subsequently, the Tribunal issued a second order in which it reviewed its earlier decision, set aside the refusal, and directed that the struck‑out allegation be restored and that annexure D be substituted by annexure DI. The appellant then approached the High Court at Allahabad under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, challenging the Tribunal’s later order. The High Court held that the Tribunal possessed the authority to review any order it had made and concluded that the Tribunal’s order allowing the amendment was proper. The Court also observed that, had the Tribunal lacked such review power, the High Court itself, already seized of the matter, would be deemed to have set aside the Tribunal’s original order and to have permitted the amendment. The appellant did not appeal this judgment of the High Court. The matter subsequently proceeded to trial before the Tribunal, where the appellant presented his evidence without any objection being raised on the ground that the petition was defective for lack of particulars. The Tribunal, however, concluded that the alleged corrupt practice had not been proved and dismissed the petition. On appeal, the High Court found that the corrupt practice had indeed been established and consequently set aside the appellant’s election, leading to the present appeal. It is argued that the election petition should have been dismissed because it did not provide sufficient particulars of the alleged corrupt practice. The corrupt practice in question falls under section 123(5) of the Representation of the People Act, which reads: “The hiring or procuring, whether on payment or otherwise, of any vehicle or vessel by a candidate … for the conveyance of any elector … to or from any polling station.” It is contended that the hiring of the vehicle constitutes an essential element of the corrupt practice under this provision, while the procurement of a vehicle is not relevant in the present case. Accordingly, the petition is said to require a statement of the date, place, and parties to the hiring contract. Section 83 of the Act mandates that an election petition set out full particulars of any alleged corrupt practice, including, as far as possible, the names of the parties alleged to have committed such practice and the date and place of each occurrence. The issue, therefore, is whether the petition must disclose the parties to the hiring contract and the date and location of that contract.

In this case, the appellant argued that the election petition should have included the date, place, and parties to the vehicle‑hiring contract because the statute defined the corrupt practice as the hiring of a vehicle for conveying electors. The respondent admitted that the petition did not state those particulars, but contended that the wrongdoing was committed by the act of transporting electors in a hired vehicle, not by the hiring contract itself, and therefore the missing details did not raise any issue. The Court examined these submissions and found the appellant’s contention persuasive. The statutory provision made the hiring of the vehicle the corrupt practice, and the essential feature of that practice was that a hiring contract must exist. The Court could not conceive of a vehicle being hired without a contract, and therefore concluded that the particulars of the contract were required. The Court also rejected the respondent’s view that describing the corrupt practice as the conveyance of electors in a hired vehicle was sufficient, because that description implicitly referred to a vehicle that had been hired through a contract. Merely moving electors in any vehicle did not satisfy the element; the vehicle had to be a hired one. Consequently, the contract of hire remained an indispensable component of the offence under section 123(5). Whether a contract for hiring a vehicle without any actual conveyance would itself constitute a corrupt practice was not relevant to the present dispute, and regardless of the answer, the contract remained a necessary element. Accordingly, the appellant was entitled to the missing particulars.

Turning to the consequence of the omission, the Court considered whether the petition should be dismissed for failing to supply the required particulars. The Court observed that Section 83 of the Act merely obliges the petition to set out full particulars of any alleged corrupt practice, but it does not prescribe dismissal as a penalty for non‑compliance. The Court noted that Section 90(3) empowers the Tribunal to dismiss an election petition that does not comply with the provisions of sections 81, 82 or 117, and that Section 83 is not among the sections listed in that provision. Accordingly, the Court could not agree with the respondent’s suggestion that the petition was automatically liable to dismissal on account of the missing contract details. No authority was shown that the Act provided for such dismissal. The Court therefore concluded that the appellant was not entitled to a dismissal of the petition for the lack of particulars. However, the Court affirmed that the appellant did have a right to request the missing information, and that such a right derived from Section 83 as well as from Section 90(1), which made the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure applicable to proceedings before an Election Tribunal. The Court observed that the appellant had not made a formal application for the particulars, but had instead proceeded to trial and produced evidence without raising any objection that the absence of the details hampered his defence. Consequently, the Court held that the appellant could not later complain about the missing particulars, and that the issue of what would have happened had the Tribunal ordered the respondent to furnish the details was moot because no such order was made.

Section 83 together with section 90(1) of the Act incorporated the procedural rules of the Code of Civil Procedure for conduct of a trial before an Election Tribunal. In the view expressed, the contract of hiring constitutes an essential element of the corrupt practice described in section 123(5) of the Act. The appellant did not file an application seeking the particulars of the alleged corrupt practice. Instead, he chose to proceed to trial, presented his evidence, and did not raise any objection that his defence was impaired because the particulars had not been furnished. Consequently, the appellant is not permitted to complain at a later stage about the absence of those particulars. It is unnecessary to speculate on a hypothetical scenario in which, had the appellant applied for the particulars, the respondent might have been ordered to provide them and then failed to do so, because no such order was ever made. The only remaining point is that the appellant cannot now argue that the Tribunal erred in reviewing its own order. The High Court had already rejected that argument when it disposed of the application filed under articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution. For additional safety, the High Court also issued an order permitting the amendment sought by the respondent. Since the appellant did not challenge that decision by filing an appeal, the High Court’s ruling is binding on him, and he must accept that the amendment of the petition was proper. Even if the amendment had not been properly allowed, the effect would have been merely that some additional particulars of the alleged corrupt practice would have been missing; such a deficiency, as previously explained, would not have resulted in dismissal of the election petition. The only remaining issue raised at trial concerned a factual question—whether the alleged corrupt practice had been proved. The court shares the view expressed by the learned judges on that point and adds no further comment. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed.