Cases Related to Elections Offences
                                                                                    By – Nikita Verma

E Anoop v State of Kerala, 2012

The petitioner had allegedly appeared at the polling station at Mokeri Government U.P. School in Peringalam constituency, and changed his name and presented himself as Kuttikkattu Pavitharan in the polling booth. He did so to obtain a voting paper even though he wasn’t the person he claimed to be, nor was he a person belonging to that constituency/booth. The court held him guilty of the offense of personation under Section 171D and 171F.

Iqbal Singh v. Gurdas Singh, 1975

In this case, the respondent was elected from a constituency in Punjab as a Member of Parliament. The petitioner alleged that a minimum of 15,000 invalid votes had been cast, due to which the respondent had been declared elected, and that the accused had allegedly distributed huge sums of money to Harijans under the pretext of aiding them to construct Dharamshalas, and also gave out several gun licenses as gratification to induce voters to vote for them.

The appellant contended that this gratification was liable to be admitted as the corrupt practice of bribery and that the free legal rights of voters had been influenced and tampered with.

The accused failed to establish that 15,000 invalid votes had been cast. According to Rule 56 of Election Rules, a ballot paper devoid of both, the mark and signature of the polling officer shall be invalid. The same was not the case here.

“Gratification”, if to be included under bribery, shall only be used to refer to cases where a material advantage is conferred on offering a gift. The license given in this case did not provide any material advantage and hence couldn’t be said to be included under bribery. Apart from that, bribery necessities the existence of bargaining of votes. Since there was no evidence regarding the bargaining of votes in exchange for gun licenses, the issues did not stand ground and the case was dismissed.

Raj Raj Deb vs Gangadhar, 1962

The respondent was the younger brother of the Raja of Puri in Odisha. The petitioner alleged that the appellant wrongly used this fact to his benefit during election campaigning in the district of Satyapadi, where he said that he was “Chalanti Bishnu” himself, and induced people to vote for him by saying that if they don’t do so, they will be displeasing Lord Jagannath himself and every vote given to him was a vote given to Lord Jagannath. He threatened Divine displeasure and spiritual displeasure if his directions were not followed. Apart from that, he was also alleged that the appeals had been made to the villagers to cast their votes on the ground of his caste, Khandayat. He also used Nila Ghakra, which is the religious symbol of Lord Jagannath for his election campaigning. 

The court held it to contravene Section 171F of IPC.

Veeraghavan v. Rajnikanth, 1997

The respondent, Mr. Rajnikanth is an established film actor with a massive fan following all over Indian and especially in Tamil Nadu. The petitioner, a lawyer in the Supreme Court has accused him of exercising undue influence over people as on the eve of the election, the respondent presented a tele-campaign presentation where he urged the voters to accept Rs 500 or Rs. 1000 from the petitioner, and still not vote for him.

The issue was whether this would attract IPC Section 171B, which deals with bribery and IPC Section 171C, which deals with undue influence.

The speech, as translated said that the voters of Tamil Nadu couldn’t be swayed by these tactics and couldn’t be corrupted; therefore, if the opponent offered money as a bargain for votes, do not hesitate and accept it, but still, exercise their legal rights freely as the people of Tamil Nadu could not be bought.

The Court said that the respondent in the speech never advised to demand and receive a bribe. The offending speech wasn’t so offending and it had no trace of mandate or imposition of restraint on the voters to refrain from doing what they wished to do. The said sections of IPC were not applicable and the respondent was thereby not guilty of any offense and the case was dismissed.