Not Filing Prescribed Affidavit As Per Conduct Of Election Rules Makes Election Petition Non-Maintainable: HP High Court

The Himachal Pradesh High Court held that an election petition filed with allegations of corrupt practice has to be accompanied by a mandatory affidavit in Form 25, as required under Rule 94-A of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.Justice Ajay Mohan Goel Held that:“...though in the election petition there are allegations of corrupt practice, yet the election petitioner has not filed the prescribed affidavit in Form-25 and, therefore, as there is a non-compliance of Rule 94-A of the 1961 Rules, read with Section 83(1) of the 1951 Act, and in absence of this affidavit being in Form-25, the petition cannot be put to trial.”The petitioner, Shri Ram Lal Thakur, was a candidate from the Indian National Congress, and the respondent contested as a BJP candidate. The election was held in November 2022, and vote counting was done in December 2022. The petitioner contended that there were irregularities and illegalities in the process of counting of votes, and corrupt practices were adopted. He stated that 341 postal ballots were declared invalid without informing his counting agents, and the recount was improperly conducted by the Returning Officer.He further contended that the respondent used and distributed liquor and money in order to influence the people to cast votes in his favour.He claimed that an intimation was given to the police, but still no immediate action was taken, as the respondent, being the candidate from the political party in power, influenced the police and an FIR was registered only after escalation to the Superintendent of Police.Further the Court remarked that the allegations could have been made either on the basis of the personal information of the petitioner or on the basis of information received and in no way could they have been made on the basis of legal advice received.Also, the petitioner did not disclose any source of information for the allegations of corrupt practice, nor did it explain how the alleged actions materially affected the election result.The Court reiterated that as per Section 83(1) of the 1951 Act, the petitioner must provide a concise statement of material facts and full particulars of the corrupt practice, including names, dates, and places.Case Name: Shri Ram Lal Thakur v/s Shri Randhir Sharma and othersCase No.: EMP No. 6 of 2023 in Election Petition No.1 of 2022Date of Decision: 26.09.2025For the Petitioner : Mr. Peeyush Verma, Senior Advocate,with Mr. Ajay Sharma, Advocate, for the non-applicant/petitioner.For the respondent : M/s Satya Pal Jain and Anshul Bansal, Senior Advocate, with M/s Virbahadur Verma, Davesh Moudgil, Prajwal Busta, Anshul Attri, Ankit Chandel and Mukul Sharma, Advocates, for applicant/respondent No.1.Non-applicants/respondents No.2 to 4 ex parte.Non-applicants/respondents No.5 to 7 are deleted from the array of parties vide order dated 20.03.2024.Click Here To Read/Download Order

Not Filing Prescribed Affidavit As Per Conduct Of Election Rules Makes Election Petition Non-Maintainable: HP High Court

Mehak Aggarwal

Tags