The Bombay High Court has held that for an election to be declared void under Section 100(1)(d)(iv) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (RP Act), the petitioner must demonstrate not merely non-compliance with the provisions of the Constitution, the RP Act, or the rules framed thereunder, but must also plead and establish that such non-compliance has materially affected the result of the returned candidate.
The Court clarified that Section 83 of the RP Act mandates full particulars of any corrupt practice alleged, including names of parties, dates, and places, and vague, omnibus pleadings lacking such particulars do not disclose a cause of action and are liable to be rejected at the threshold under Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC. Referring to the coordinate bench decision in Datta Rangnath Bahirat vs Sidharth S/O Padmakar Shirole [AEP No. 23 of 2025 decided on 17/11/2025], which dealt with an identical challenge to the same election from the Shivajinagar Constituency, the High Court held that substantially similar pleadings in the present case also failed to make out a cause of action, and the returned candidate could not be made to suffer the agonies of trial on the basis of such deficient pleadings.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh observed that a plain reading of Section 61A of the RP Act does not mandate any requirement of issuance of a notification; the provision only requires that the Election Commission specifies that giving and recording of votes would be by voting machine, and issuance of a press note is sufficient compliance with the provision. The Court noted that the Petitioner’s pleaded case was that there was no notification issued for the purpose of Section 61A, and not that the Election Commission had not specified about voting-by-voting machine, which is a crucial distinction.
The Court found that the pleadings regarding EVM tampering and non-compliance with Rule 49B were bald assertions devoid of particulars, with no specific details about which machines had which serial numbers, which stamps were used on which seals, or how the polling personnel were ill-equipped. The Court further observed that the RTI application was filed on 27th November 2024, after the election results were declared on 23rd November 2024, and therefore the non-supply of information under the RTI Act could not constitute assistance for furthering the prospects of the candidate’s election under Section 123(7) of the RP Act.
Regarding the supplementary voters list, the Court observed that there was no pleading as to how the addition of 2,943 voters resulted in improper reception of votes which are void, and mere addition of voters is not sufficient to challenge an election under Section 100(1)(d)(iii) of the RP Act.
Briefly, an Election Petition was filed by Ramesh Anandrao Bagwe (the Petitioner) seeking to declare void the election of Sunil Dnyandev Kamble (Respondent No. 1) from the 214 Pune Cantonment Legislative Assembly Constituency for the 2024 elections. The Respondent No. 1 was declared elected having secured 76,032 votes, whereas the Petitioner polled 65,712 votes including postal ballots. The Petitioner challenged the election on multiple grounds, including non-issuance of notification under Section 61A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (RP Act) for use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), non-compliance with Rule 49B of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 regarding EVM-VVPAT machines, non-supply of information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act amounting to corrupt practice under Section 123(7) of the RP Act, and illegal addition of 2,943 voters in the supplementary voters list after acceptance of nomination papers.
The Applicant (Respondent No. 1) filed an application under Order VII Rule 11(a) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 read with Sections 83, 86, and 87 of the RP Act, seeking rejection of the Election Petition on the ground that it did not disclose material facts constituting a cause of action and was vague and omnibus.
