AURANGABAD: In an unprecedented judgment, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court declared Balasaheb VikkhePatil (dissident Congress (I) member) elected to the Lok Sabha from Ahmednagar (South) constituency and passed severe strictures against Maharashtra Chief Minister Sharad Pawar holding him guilty of corrupt electoral practices.
This is for the first time in the country’s electoral history that a defeated candidate has been declared elected.
Justice A.A.Halbe who pronounced the verdict, on March 30, declared the election of the official candidate, Yeshwantrao Gadakh, null and void.
In his 360page judgment, Jus tice Halbe found Pawar and Gadakh, for whom the former had campaigned in the 1991 election, guilty and said that they had resorted to character assassination of the defeated rebel candidate. Justice Halbe held that Pawar and Gadakh had found no other method to detract the voters from voting for VikhePatil. The judge said if Gadakh had not resorted to corrupt practices in the election, a size able number of voters would have cast their votes in favor of Vikhe Patil.
While declaring the election of Gadak null and void under Section 123(4) of the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951, the court ordered him to pay Rs 40,000 to VikhePatil as cost of the petitions and gave him six weeks to appeal to the Supreme Court.
VikhePatil had filed an election petition in the high court bench here alleging that he lost the election due to the corrupt practices followed by Sharad Pawar and his rival Yeshwantrao Gadakh. Hearing of the petition began in August 1991 and as how cause notice was served on Pawar on September 18,1992 asking why he should not bemade respondentin the petition.
Vikhe Patil’s petition charged that Gadak and Pawar had made public speeches “tarnishing the character and moral conduct of the petitioner,” which had adversely affected his election prospects.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 2, 1993
