LexRAJBALI SINGH & ORS. versus SHYAMLAL & ORS.
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D E F G H 59 RAJBALI SINGH & ORS. v. SHVAMLAL & ORS. March 29, 1972 [K. S. HEGDE, A. N. GROVER AND G. K. MIT'l'ER, JJ.) Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act 196i-Rule 13 made there- wuler-Nomination form 110 be filed in Form l0V-Candidates gave only tire number of the 'ward' but failed to give the name· of the ward'-!/' fmai. IO their elections, According. to Rub 13. framed under Madhya Pradesh Municipalities AGt, 1961, a candidate i-Oir election to· the· Mutncipal Council shall deliver to the· super>isin3 officer a nomination. paper completed in Foi:m' IV and the rele\\ant column in. Form IV r.equired the. candidate to roontion the .;name and Dllmber of the Ward". Further, sub-rulet (IV) of Rule 13 provided that the supervising officers shalt not reject any nomination pap~r on the ground of any defect which is not of a substantial charac- ter. The High Court in· a writ petition, set aside the elections of 6 per- sons to the Municipal Council on the ground that they bnly mentioned the. number of thi: wards. but not their names. On. ~· qwistion whether non-mentioning the names of the wards in the nomination pap.el' was • defect o( a sugstantial character, HELD : The nomination papers of. the returned: candidates were rightly accepted by the R<oturning Officer as they substantially comp}ied with the Rule. The particulars in question were requil>,d to identify the , c'onstituency in which a candidate \\'as desirous of seeking election. That purpose was served when eitll~r the number of tbe ward~ or its name was given unless there were more than one ward having the same name. ©nee tho numben of the wao:d was mentioned in the. nomination paper, the identification of the con•tituency was complete. \The name of the ward was merely an additional piei:~ of evidence to identify the constituency, Once the number of the ward was mentioned, there W9S no difficulty: lbr the Returning Officer to find out in which constituency too candidate& wanted to seek election. [61D] Rc.ngilal• Chowdhury v. Dahu Sen & Ors. [1962] 2 S .. C.R. 401 and Ram Awad•sh Singh v. Smt. SumiAra Devi & Ors., A.LR. 1972 S;C. 5&0, referred to. CiVtL APPELLATE- JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 889 of 1971. Appeal from the order dated December 9, 1970. of the Madhyo. Pradesh High Court in }.1iscellaneous Petitiorr ~'o. 267 of 1969. T,, S. Baghel, Pramod Swarup and S. S. Khanduja, for the appellants. R. Panjwani and S. K. Gambhir, for respondent No. I .. R. P. Kapur, for respontlents Nos. 2 and 3'. The Judgment of the Court was delivered ~ Hegde, J.-This is an appeal· by certificate. :U relates to the elections to Municipal Council, Sidhi. The elections were jield 60 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1973] l S.C.R. in 1969. ·In that election six persons i.e. four appellants and respondents 5 and 6 in this appeal were elected. Thereafter the first respondent herein an elector and apparently•a busy body filed a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh challenging the validity of the election of all the returned candidates on several grounds. The High Court accepted that petition and set aside the election of all the returned candidates. The only ground on which the election of the returned candidates was set aside is that the returned candidates in their nomination papers had merely mentioned the number of the wards for which they were candidates but had failed to mention the names oi those wards. It is not the case of the election petitioner nor is !t th~ ~nding of the. High_ Court that there was any difficulty in 1dentifymg the ward m which the concerned returned candidate wanted to seek electio.n. The Returning Officer did not find am such difficulty. He accepted their nomination papers. Admittedly· every ward had a specific number in addition to having a name. The High Court was of the opinion that the successful candi- dates failure to mention the name of the wards in their nomination papers was fatal and therefore the Returning Officer was not com- petent to accept their nomination. It thought that it was manda- tory for all the candidates to mention in their nomination papers the names of the wards in which they wanted to seek election. Further it opined that a mere mentioning of the !!lumber of the ward may lead to clerical errors and therefore the rul·~-making authority had prescribed that the nai,..e of the ward also should be mentioned in
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