RAMANBHAI ASHABHAI PATEL versus DABHI AJITKUMAR FULSINJI AND OTHERS

Citation: [1965] 1 S.C.R. 712 · Decided: 09-10-1964 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: P.B. GAJENDRAGADKAR · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Cited by 5 judgment(s) · cites 2 · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

712 
RAMANBHAIASHABHAIPATEL 
v. 
DABHI AJITKUMAR FULSINn AND OTHERS 
October 9, 1964 
(P. B. GAJENDRAGADKAR, C.J., K. N. WANCHOO, 
M. HIDAYATULLAH, RAGHUBAR DAYAL 
fND J. R. MUDHOLKAR JJ.) 
Representation of the l'eop/e Act (43 of 1951), s. 123(3)-Corrupt 
practice of using religious symbol-What is. 
Practice-Supreme Court-Appeal by special leav•-Right of respon-
lient to support ;udgnzent on grounds found against by High Court. 
Election-Purity of-Tribunal and High Court-Duty to 1nqui1' into 
allegations of corrupt practice. 
The first respondent sought to have the election of the appellant to the 
Assembly seat set aside on the following two grounds, amoog others :-
(i) that the appellant was guilty of a corrupt practice within the meaning 
of a. 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, by using a 
religious symbol, namely the Dhruva star, as bis election symbol, and by 
the distribution of pamphlets in which the qualities of the stat were set out, 
and (ii) that the second respondent's nomination paper was improperJ;1 
accepted because he had not completed 25 years of age. 
The Tribunal-
rejected the first ground but set aside the election on tho second. On appeal, 
the High court rejected the second ground, but set aside tlie ele<:tion on 
the first. 
On appe-•l to the Supreme Court, 
HELD : (i) An election dispute is to a certain extent different from 
a private dispute behveen the parties to a /is because the constituency also 
comes into the picture and, therefore, it is the duty of the Election Tribunal 
to safeguard its interests and if corrupt practices. are alleged against any 
candidate to enquire into them and ascertain whether the allegations have 
been substantiated. 
llut where a party did not seek to challenge those 
findings there was no further duty upon the High Court to examine their 
correctness. [715 C-E] 
(ii) The use of the Dhruva star and its description in the pam~hlet did 
not amount to a corrupt practice within the meaning of the sccuon. To 
aay that voters who saw or read the leaflets were likely to coajure up in· 
lbeir minds the picture of a highly religious person and, therefore, their 
relisious sentiments would have been aroused was too fat fetched a con-
clusion. [723 Al 
(iii) .1\.9 soon as special leave is granted there is an appeal before the 
Supreme Court and while dealing \\'ith such an appeal it exercises its civil 
jurisdiction, when the matter arises out of civil proceedings. [724 A-BJ 
(iv) While dealing with the appeal before it, this Coun has the power 
IO decide all the points arising from the judgment appealed against and 
even in the absence of an express provision like 0. XU, r. 22 of the 
Code of Civil Procedure it can devise the appropriate procedure to be 
adopted at the hearing. There could be no better way of supplying the 
deficiency than by drawing upon the prO\isions of a general Jaw like the 
Code of Civil Procedure and adopting such of those provioions as are 
suitable. (724 D·FJ 
I 
A 
B 
c 
D 
E 
F 
G 
H 
ASHABHAI PATEL v. DABIIl FULSINJI (Mudholkar /.) 
713 
A 
Jagdev Singh Sidhaliiti v. Pratap Singh Daulta and Ors. A.I.R. 1965 
S.C. 183; Shubnath Deogram v. R,am Narain Prasad & Ors. [1960) 1 
S.C.R. 953 and Ku/tar Singh v. Mukhtiar Singh, A.LR. 1965 S.C. 141, 
followed. 
Observations in Vashist Narain Sharma v. Dev Chandra & Ors. [1955) 
1 S.C.R. 509, 519, disapproved. 
. 
. 
Sri Baru Ram v. ShrimaJi Prasanni and others, [1959) S.C.R. 1403, 
B 
referred to. 
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 506 of 
1964. 
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated 
March 11, 12, 196'.3, of the Gujarat High Court in First Appeal 
C No, 428 of 1962 .from Original Decree. 
D 
S. T. Desai and S. C. Agarwal, for the appellant. 
Rajani Patel and I. N. Shroff for the respondent. 
S. S. Shukla, for respondent No. 2 and the Intervener. 
The Judgment of the Court was•delivered by 
Mudholkar J. 
The main question which arises for decision, 
in this appeal riom .me judgment of the Gujarat High Court is 
whether the appeuau1 could be said to be guilty of a corrupt prac-
tice contemplated by sub-s. (3) of s. 123 of.the Representation of 
E 
the People Act, 1951 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) by 
reason of the fact that his election symbol, a star, was described 
as 'Dhruva star' in the pamphlets published and distributed by 
him or by his agents and in which the qualities of Dhruva star were 
also set out. 
F 
The election to the Assi

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