LexRAJENDRA PRASAD JAIN versus SHEEL BHADRA YAJEE & ORS.
Open in Lexace · Ask the AI about this caseJudgment (excerpt)
A B c D E F G H RAJENDRA PRASAD JAIN v. SHEEL BHADRA Y AJEE & ORS. February 28, 1967 [K. N. WANCHOO, R. S. BACHAWAT AND V. BHARGAVA, JJ.J Election Petition-Bribery and offer of bribery alleged-Facts which court can take into consideration-Offer of bribe whether must be of specific aniount to be corrupl practice. Letters J'atent.--Difference among Judges constituting Dlvi.rion Bench-Reference , whether can be made to a single Judge-'Bench' whether includes single Judge. Respondent No. 1 challenged the election of the .appellant. t~ the Rajya Sabha on the a)leged ground of corrupt practice com1s11ng of bribery as well as offer of bribery. Th~ Tribunal held that "!>th the above mentioned o/t>OS of corrupt pracuces were proved ag01nst the appellant. The High Court upheld the order of the Tribunal holding only that offer of brib~ in two cases was proved .. The appellant. ~"!'le to this Court with certificate. It was urged that (1) when the Div1S1on Bench which oriJ!inally heard the appeal,, on difference arising among the Judges consututing it, asked for a reference to another bench, the Chief Justice had no power under Art. 28 of the Letters Patent to refer the matter to a single Judge, (ii) this Court should examine the evidence as to offer of bribe to cenain persons for itself, as the High Court had misread the evidence and bad relied on certain irrelevant pieces of evidence, (iii) the facts proved did not justify a finding that bribe was offered by the appellant. HELD : (i) Under Art. 28 of the Letters Patent the 'reference of the case to a single Judge was competent. The word 'Bench' in the Article includes a single Judge. [21 HJ (ii) In considering the allegations of bribery against the appellant the court was entitled to take into consideration the fact that the appel- l"!'t was a man of means and that he had no political background in B1har. wher~ he did not have a permanent residential house. There was no mISreadmg of the evidence by the High Court and no case had been made out fot a re·appraisal of the findings. [23 B.C, HJ (iii) The proposition cannot be accepted that an offer of bribery cannot be held to be such unless a specific amount is mentioned in the offer. [27 DJ Emperor v. Amiruddin Salebhoy Tyabjee, A.LR. 1923 Born. 44, Emperor v. Choubt Dinkar Rao & Ors. A.I.R. 1933 All. 513. Jn the matter 7'f Balls v. The Metropolitan Board of Works, (1865-66) 1 Q.B. Cases 3~7, Mohan Singh v. Bhanwarlal & Orr. A.LR. 1964 S.C. 1366 and Union of India v. H. C. Goel, A.I.R. 1964 S.C. 364, distingui>hed. Charturbhuj Vithaldas Jasani v. Moreshwar Parashram & Ors. [1954J S.C.R. 817, Cast No. XII of Borough of Staleybridge, (1869) I O'Malley and Hardcastle p. 66 and Case No. XV of Borough of Coventry, (1869) I O'Mal!ey and Hardcastle p. 97,, relied on. 20 SUPllBMB COUllT REPORTS [1967] 3 S.C.R C1v1L APPELLATE Ju&rsmcnoN : Civil Appeal No 1454 of 1966. . Appeal from the judgment and order dated March 3 1966 of the Patna High Court in Election Appeal No. 3 of 1965. Veda Vyasa,' K. K. Jain and R. Gopalakri&hnan, for the ap· pellant. K. P. Varma and D. Goburdhun, for respondent No. 1. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by. Bhargava, J. In 1964, there were eight vacancies in the Rajya Sabha for which members had to be elected from the constituency of the Legislative Assembly of Bihar; The election was to be held on 26th March, 1964. It appears that the Con- gress Party put up 6 candidates out of the total of 13 candidates who were nominated fdr these eight vacancies. Two of the can- didates withdrew after scrutiny of nomination papers and, consequently, for the actual election there were 6 Congress candi· dates and 5 others. . Amongst these 5 others was the appellant Rajendra Prasad Jain who was standing as an Independent candidate. One of the Congress candidates was respondent Sheel Bhadra Yajee. At the election, Rajendra Prasad Jain was de- clared as one of the elected candidates, . while respondent Sheel Bhadra Yajee was unsuccessful. Respondent No. 1, Sheel Bhadra Yajee, then filed an election petition challenging the election of the appellant to the Rajya Sabha. The main ground for challenge was that the appellant had committed the corrupt practice of bribery or offer of bribery in order to secure his election. In the election petition as originally filed, Schedule I contained the names of five persons to w
Excerpt shown. Read the full judgment & AI analysis in Lexace.