There was sharp differences in a bench of the Supreme Court while interpreting a vital provision of the Representation of People’s Act relating to recounting of votes in parliamentary and Assembly elections, particularly when the victory margin is very narrow. The RPA provision for interpretation before the top court was related to Section 97 of the act, which debars the winning candidate from making a plea in the election petition for recounting of the votes of the losing candidates.
A bench of Justices V.S. Sirpurkar and M.K. Sharma in their separate judgments on the issue gave differing verdicts, with the former stating that the winning candidate should also have a right to seek recounting of the votes of all the losing candidates when the victory margin was very thin.
Otherwise, it would be “unfair” to the winning candidate if the recount altered the result, Justice Sirpurkar said.
As per the election rules, in an election petition, only the losing candidate can make the plea of recounting while the returned candidate is debarred from making such a prayer under Section 97.
Justice Sirpurkar termed it disadvantageous to the winning candidate, especially in the cases where margin of victory is as close as of two votes. In such cases when the recount is ordered, “it cannot be a partial recount”.
“It has to be general recount where the void votes can be located and ignored to arrive at a conclusion that this will also apply to votes improperly accepted of the other candidates than the elected candidate. It is only then that a correct position could be arrived at as to which candidate has, in fact secured majority of votes,” Justice Sirpurkar said.
The position taken by Justice Sirpurkar was being seen as “radical” while Justice Sharma has struck to the earlier opinion of the apex court that when an election of a candidate is challenged, only the votes of the “returned candidate” would be counted.