# SAHODRABAI RAI v. RAM SINGH AHARWAR

- **Citation:** [1968] 3 S.C.R. 13
- **Court:** Supreme Court of India
- **Decided:** 1968-02-02
- **Case number:** Civil Appeal No. 1693 of 1967
- **Bench:** M. liIDAYATULLAH, R. S. Bachawat, K. S. Hegde
- **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/sahodrabai-rai-v-ram-singh-aharwar-4272
- **Pages:** 8

## Headnote

Representation of the People Act, 1951, s. 83-Annexure to Election
Petition-Necessity of service on respondent.
The appellant filed an election petition with a pamphlet as annexure
thereto. A translation in English of the pamphlet was incorporated in the
body of the election petition, and it was stated in the petition that it formed
part of the petition. The first respondent raised an objection that a copy
of the pamphlet had not been annexed to the copy of the election petition
served on him and therefore, the election petiiion was liable to be dismissed
under s. 86 of the Representation of the People Act.
The High Court
acoepted the objection and dismissed the election petition.
In appeal,
this Court,
HELD : The order of the High Court must be set aside.
The words used in s. 81(3) are only "the election petition". There is
no mention of any document accompanying the election petition. Since
the election petition itself reproduced the whole of the pamphlet in a translation in English, it could be said that the averments with regard to the
pamphlet were themselves a Part of the petition, and therefore the pamphlet was served upon the respondents although in a translation and not
in original. [19 B-H]
Even if this be not the case, it is quite clear that's. 83(2) has reference
not to a document which is produced as evidence of the averments of the
election petition but to averments of the election petition which are put,
not in the election petition but in the accompanying schedules or annexures.
Details of averments too compendious for being included in the election
peti~ion may be set out in the schedules or annexures to the election
petition.
The law then requires that even though they are outside the
election petition, they must be signed and verified.
The annexures or
schedules are then treated a'S integrated with the election petition and
copies of them must be served on the Tespondents if the requirement regarding service of election petition is to be wholly complied with. But
this does not apply to documents which are merely evidence in the case
but for reasons of clarity and to lend force to the petition are not kept
back but produced or filed with election petitions. They are in no s..,..
an integral part of the averments of the petition but are only evidence of
those avebnents and in proof thereof. (19 H-20 DJ
The pamphlet, therefore. must be treated as a document and not as
a part of the election petition in so. far as averments are concerned. When
the election petitioner said that it was to be treated as pan of her election
petition she was merely indicating that it was not to be though that she had
not produced the document in time.
She was insisting upon the document remaining with the petition so that it could be available whenever the
question of the election petition or its contents arose. [20 D--EJ
•

## Text

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SAHODRABAI RAI
v.
RAM SINGH AHARWAR
February 2, 1968
[M. liIDAYATULLAH, R. S. BACHAWAT AND K. S. HEGDE, iJ.J
Representation of the People Act, 1951, s. 83-Annexure to Election
Petition-Necessity of service on respondent.
The appellant filed an election petition with a pamphlet as annexure
thereto. A translation in English of the pamphlet was incorporated in the
body of the election petition, and it was stated in the petition that it formed
part of the petition. The first respondent raised an objection that a copy
of the pamphlet had not been annexed to the copy of the election petition
served on him and therefore, the election petiiion was liable to be dismissed
under s. 86 of the Representation of the People Act.
The High Court
acoepted the objection and dismissed the election petition.
In appeal,
this Court,
HELD : The order of the High Court must be set aside.
The words used in s. 81(3) are only "the election petition". There is
no mention of any document accompanying the election petition. Since
the election petition itself reproduced the whole of the pamphlet in a translation in English, it could be said that the averments with regard to the
pamphlet were themselves a Part of the petition, and therefore the pamphlet was served upon the respondents although in a translation and not
in original. [19 B-H]
Even if this be not the case, it is quite clear that's. 83(2) has reference
not to a document which is produced as evidence of the averments of the
election petition but to averments of the election petition which are put,
not in the election petition but in the accompanying schedules or annexures.
Details of averments too compendious for being included in the election
peti~ion may be set out in the schedules or annexures to the election
petition.
The law then requires that even though they are outside the
election petition, they must be signed and verified.
The annexures or
schedules are then treated a'S integrated with the election petition and
copies of them must be served on the Tespondents if the requirement regarding service of election petition is to be wholly complied with. But
this does not apply to documents which are merely evidence in the case
but for reasons of clarity and to lend force to the petition are not kept
back but produced or filed with election petitions. They are in no s..,..
an integral part of the averments of the petition but are only evidence of
those avebnents and in proof thereof. (19 H-20 DJ
The pamphlet, therefore. must be treated as a document and not as
a part of the election petition in so. far as averments are concerned. When
the election petitioner said that it was to be treated as pan of her election
petition she was merely indicating that it was not to be though that she had
not produced the document in time.
She was insisting upon the document remaining with the petition so that it could be available whenever the
question of the election petition or its contents arose. [20 D--EJ
•
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 1693 of
1967.
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(1968] 3 s.c.R.
Appeal under s. 116-A of the Representation of the People
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Act, 19 51 from the judgment and order dated September 21,
1967 of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Election Petition No.
10 of 1967.
G. N. Dikshit and R. N. Dikshit, for the appellant.
C. B. Agarwala, Uma Mehta, S. K. Bagga and Shureshta
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Bagga, for respondent No. 1.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
Hidayatollah, J. This is an appeal against the judgment of the
High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur, dated September 21,
1967, dismissing the election petition filed by the appellant on
the preliminary ground that a proper copy of the election petition
was not served upon the answering parties. The facts of the case
are as follows :
The appellant was a candidate for election to the Sagar Lok
Sabha Scheduled Castes cons!ituency No. 24. The election took
place on February 20, 1967. There .were three other contesting
candidates of whom the first respondent secured the largest num·
ber of votes and was declared elected. The appellant secured the
second largest number of votes, her votes being less by just under
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300 th.an the successful candidate's votes. An election petition
was thereafter filed by the appellant on April 5, 1967. ·In this
election petition the appellant challenged the election of the first
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respondent on four grounds. They were (a) wrongful accepiance
of his nomination paper, (b) corrupt practice inasmuch as 'be
appealed to religion through a pamphlet marked Annexure 'A',
(c) undue influence, and (d) breaches of the Act and Rules.
The pamphlet to which reference is made was styled Bhayarikar
Vajraghat and was published by Sarvadaliya Goraksha Mababbiyan Samiti, Deori Kalan Branch. It charged the party of the appellant namely the Congress with encouraging cow-slaughter and
offending the Hindu Sentiment. Details were: given in it of the
number of animals slaughtered every day in Madhya Pradesh
and elsewhere and blamed the Congress with being a party to the
practice. In the body of the election petition a translation in
English of the Hindi pamphlet was incorporated. The original
pamphlet was attached to the election petition and was marked
Annexure 'A'.
The election petitioner proceeded to say in her
petition "it forms part of the petition".
When parties appeared the first respondent filed his written
statement in great detail. He dealt with this pamphlet and answered the allegations of the election petitioner in relation thereto
paragraph by paragraph. As a result of thes~ pleas a nun:ber <;>f
issues were raised on July 18, 1967. No issue was raised m
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SAHODRABAI v. RAM SINGH (Hidayatu/lah, !.)
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regard to the service of a defective copy of the election petition
upon the respondents in general and the first respondent in particular. However, on August 3, 1967, a special objection was
made by the first respondent claiming that the copy of the pamphlet had not been annexed to the copy of the election petition
served upon him and therefore the election petition was liable to
be dismissed in accordance with the provisions of s. 8 6 of the
Representation of the People Act. A ~etailed reply to this objection was given by the election petitioner. She stated that this was
an after-thought inasmuch as the translation of the pamphlet was
incorporated in the election petition and the allegations regarding
the pamphlet had been answered in detail by the answering respondent. The Court thereupon framed an additional issue on
August 4, 1967. The issue ran as follows:
"Whether the election petition is liable to be dismissed for contravention of S. 81 (3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 as copy of Annexure A
to the pe'.ition was not given along with the petition
for being served on the respondents".
Parties first filed a number of affidavits pro and con. Later
the Court ordered . attendance of
the . depanents for crossexamination. In this way the appellant and her counsel who had
filed affidavits earlier were examined.
Their case was that the
copies of the election petition had been properly put together
including in each copy an original pamphlet for service on· the
respondents.
On the other side the first
respondent and two
others filed affidavits s'.ating that when the copy of the election
petition was received it was not accompanied by the pamphlet. hi
their. examination in Court all maintained the same position and
were cross-examined. The learned Judge trying the case also
ordered the attendance of the Reader of the Deputy Registrar of
the High Court who bad dealt with the election petition and he
was examined as Court witness No. 1. He stated that the copies
of the petition were complete except that the pamphlet was not
annexed to each copy. He s'.ated that he had noted at the time
this fact but had treated the pamphlet as a document and not as
an Annexure to the election petition.
The learned Judge, on an appraisal of this material held that
the copies of the election petition served upon the respondents
were not accompanied by the pamphlet which was an Annexure
to the elec'.ion petition. After examining the law on the subject
the learned Judge came to the conclusion that the election petition should be dismissed under s. 86 of the Representation of the
People Act and he accordingly dismissed it with costs. No other
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SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[1968] 3 s.c.R.
issue which was struck between the parties was gone into because
the election petition failed at the very threshold.
In this appeal it is contended that the learned Judge was in
error in thinking that the pamphlet ought to have accompanied the
copies of the election petition or that the law required that it
should have been annexed to the copy. of the election petition
served on the respondents. In this connection our attention was
drawn to the provisions of the Repn;sentation of the People Act
to which we shall refer presently. On the oth()r side it was contended that whatever the meaning of the expressions "the election
petition", "annexures" or "schedules" in the Act,
the election
petitioner by her own conduct had made this docu,ment a part of
the election petition and therefore it was incumbent upon her to
have served the whole of the election petilion and not only a part
of it as she did and therefore the order now appealed against was
correct. Before we come to these rival con!entions we find it
necessary to refer first to the relevant provisions on the subject
Section 81 of the Representation of the People Act occurs in
Chapter II which is headed "Presentation of Election Petitions to
Election Commission". It provides as follows:
"Presentation of Petitions :
( 1) An election petition calling in question any election may be presented on one or more of the
grounds specified in sub-section ( 1) of section
100 and section 101 to the High Court by any
candidate at such election or any elector within forty-five days from, but not earlier than,
the date of election of the returned candidate,
or if there are more than one returned candidate at the election and the dates
of their
election are different, the later of those
two
dates.
(3)
Explanation :-In this sub-section, 'elector'
means a person who was entitled to vote at the
election to which the election petition relates,
whether he has voted at such election or not.
Every elec!ion petition shall be accompanied by
as many copies thereto as there· are respondents
mentioned in the pe!ition and every such copy
shall be attesff'..d by the petitioner under his own
signature to be a true copy of the petition."
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SAHODRABAI v~ RAM SINGH (Hidayatullah, 1.)
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The first respondent draws pointed attention to the third subsection which says that every election petition shall be accompanied by as many copies thereof as there are respondents mentioned in the petition and every such copy shall be attested by
the petitioner under his own signature to be a true copy of the
petition. The dispute therefore is whether the pamphlet could be
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described in this case as a part of the election petition. The
answering respondent says that it is so and was considered to be
so by the election pe!itioner herself when she stated that it was
to be read as a part of the election petition.
The matter, in our opinion, is not to be resolved on how the
election petitioner viewed the matter but from the point of view
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of the requirement of the law on the subject. For this purpose
we have to turn to s. 83 of the Representation of the People Act
which provides what the contents of the election petition shall be.
It reads as follows :-
( 1) An election petitionD
(a) shall contain a concise statement of the material
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facts on which 1the petitioner relies;
(b) shall set forth full particulars of any corrupt
· prao'.ice that the petitioner alleges, including as
full a sta•ement 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; and
( c) shall be signed by the petitioner and verified in
the manner laid down in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 ( 5 of 1908), for the verification
of pleadings.
Provided that where the petitioner alieges
any corrupt practice, the petition shall also be
accompanied by an affidavit in the prescribed
form in support of the allegation of such corrupt
practice and the ,Particulars thereof.
(2) Any schedule or annexure to the petition shall
also be signed by the petitioner and verified in
the same manner as the petition.
The answering respondent herein again draws pointed atte'!tjon
to the fact that the schedules and the annexures to the petition
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are mentioned and •hey have to be signed and verified in ~e Sllll1;e
manner as the petition meaning thereby that as ~e elec~~n petitioner ·had made the pamphlet a part of the election petition she
was required to sign and verify the pamphlet and also to serve a
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SUPREME COUllT REPORTS
[1968] 3 S.c.it.
co~y. of it as required by sub-s. (3) of s. 81 when the election
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petition was served.
He then relies· upon s. 86 which provides
that the High Court shall dismiss an election petition which does
not comply with the provisions of s. 81, s. 82 ors. 117.
An argument was raised in this case as to whether s. 86(1) is
mandatory or merely directory. We need not go into this aspect
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of the case. In our opinion, the present matter can be resolved
on an examination of the relevant facts and the contents of tbe
election petition as detailed in s. 83 reproduced above. It may
be pointed out here that the trial of election petition has to follow
as far as may be the provisions of· the Code of Civil Procedure.
We are therefore of opinion that it is permissible to look into tbe
Code of Civil Procedure to see what exactly would have been tbe
case if this was a suit and not a trial of an election petition.
Under the Code of Civil Procedure a suit is commenced by a
plaint. This is provided by O.IV, r. 1 which says tliat every suit
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shall be instituted by presenting a plaint to tlie Court. After the
plaint is receivded o
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. V provides the summoning of the defendants
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in the case an r.
of that order says that every summons shall
be accompanied by a copy of the plaint, and if so permitted, by
a concise statement. We then turn to -the provisions of O.Vll
which deals with the cQntents of a plaint. ·The first ruie mentioos
the. particulars which must be in a plaint. It is not necessary to
refer to them. The plaint has to be signed and verified. Rule 9
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then provides that the plaintiff shall endorse on the plaint and
annex thereto a list of documents, if any, which he has produced
along with it and, if the plaint is admitted, shall present as many
copies on plain paper of the plaint as there are defendants unless
the Court by reason of the length of the plaint or the number of
defendants, or for any other sufficient reason, permits him to
present a. like number of concise statements of the nature of the
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claims· made .etc.
It will be noticed here that what is required
to be provided are copies of the plaint itself or the concise statement according to the number of defendants. There is no mention here of any other documents of which a copy is needed to
be presented to the Court for service to the defendants. Then we
come tor. 14 which states that where a plaintiff sues upon a docnG
ment in his possession or power he shall produce it in court when
the plaint is presented and shall at the same time deliver the
document or a copy thereof to be filed with the plaint. It will
be noticed that he is required to file only one copy of the document and not as many copies as there are defendants in the case.
It would therefore follow that a copy of the document is no! exH
peeled to be delivered. with the copy of the plaint to the answering defendants when summons is served on them. In the. schedules
to the Code of Civil Procedure we have got Appendix B which
SAHODRABAI v. RAM SINGH (Hidayatul/ah, J.)
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prescribes the forms for summons to the defendants. There. is. only
one form of summons in Appendix B, (Form No. 4) in which. the
copy of the negotiable jnstrument is to accompany the copy of. the
plaint. That is so, b&:ause of the special Jaw applying to the
negotiable instruments and the time limit within which pleas to
that document have to be raised and this is only in summary suits.
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No other form makes any mention of any document accompanying the summons with the copy of . the plaint. We need not go
into more details. It is clear that the documents which are filed
with the piaint have to be accompanied by one copy of thi>Se
documents. This is because the copy is compared with the original
and the copy is endorsed by the clerk of court and the document
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is sometimes returned to the party to be produced into Court later.
The copy takes the place of the document concerned and is not
to be· sent out to the parties with the plaint.
We may now see whether the election Jaw provides anything
different.
The only provision to which our attention has been
drawn is sub-s. (3) of s. 81 and sub-s. (2) of s. 83. The first
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provides that every election petition shall be accompanied by as
many copies thereof as there are respondents mentioned in the·
petition and that every such copy shall be an authenticated true
copy. The words used here are only "the election petition".
There is no mention of any document accompanying the election
petition. H,the matter stood with only this sub-section there would
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be no doubt that what was intended to be served is only a copy of
the election petition proper. Assistance is however taken from
the provisions of sub-s. (2) of s. 83 which provides that iny
schedule or any annexure to the petition shall ·also be signed' by
the petitioner and verified in the same manner as the petition. It
is contended that since the pamphlet was an annexure to the petition
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it was not only necessary to sign and verify it, but that it 'shciuld
have been treated as a part of the election petition itself and a
copy served upon the respondents. In this way, non-compliance
with the provisions of s. 86 ( 1) is made out. In our opinion, this
is too strict a reading of the provisions. We have already pointed
out that s. 81 (3) speaks only of the election petition. Pausing
here, we would say . that since the eleetion petition itself reproduced the whole of the pamphlet in a translation in English; it
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could be said that the avermen!s with regard to the pamphlet were
themselves a part of the petition and therefore the pamphlet was
served upon the respondents although in a translation and not in
original. Even if this be not the case, we are quite clear that subs. (2) of s. 83 has reference not to a document which is produced
as evidence of the averments of the election petition but to averments of the election petition which are put, not in the electic:>n
petition but in he accompanying schedules or annexures. We can
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(1968] 3 S.C.R.
give quite a number of exampleS from which it would be apparent
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that many of the averments of the election petition are capable
of being put as schedules or annexures: For example,
the
de.tails of the corrupt practice there in the former days used to
be set out separately in the schedules and which may, in some
.cases, be so done even after the amendment of the present law.
Similarly, details of the averments too compendious for being
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included in the election petition may be set out in the schedules
or annexures to the election petition. The law then requires that
even though they are outside the election petition, they must be
signed and verified, but such annexures or schedules are then
treated as integrated with the election petition and copies of them
must be served on the respondent if the requirement regarding
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service of the election petition is to be wholly complied with.
But what we have said here does not apply to documents which
are merely evidence in the case but which for reasons of clarity
·and to lend force to the petition are not kept back but produced
·or filed with the election petitions. They are in no sense an
integral part of the averments of the petition but are only
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evidence of those averments and in proof thereof. The pamphlet therefore must be treated as a document and not as a part of
the election petition in so far as averments are concerned. When
the election petitioner said that it was to be treated as part of
her election petition she was merely indicating that it was not
to be thought that she had not produced the document in time.
She was insisting upon the document remaining with the petition
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so that it could be available whenever the question of the election
petition or its contents arose. It would be stretching the words
of·sub-s. (2) of s. 83 too far to think that every document produced as evidence in the election petition becomes a part of the
·election petition proper. In this particular case we do not think
that the pamphlet could be so treated.
We are, therefore, of
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the opinion that whether or not s. 86(1) is mandatory or directory there was no breach of the provisions of the Representation
of the People Act in regard to the filing of the election or the
service of the copies thereof and the order under appeal was
therefore erroneous.
We accordingly set aside the order and remand the case for
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trial from this stage. The costs of the appellant will be costs in
the cause. The respondent will bear his own costs.
Y. P.
Appeal allowed and case remanded.