“23. As seen from the statement showing voter turnout report in connection with General Elections, 2009 to 98, Jangaon Legislative Assembly Constituency on 16-4-2009, the total votes polled, as reported by the Returning Officer, is shown as 1,50,678 from 251 polling stations. Whereas in the final result sheet in Form 20, total valid votes is shown as 1,51,411. So, from this document, it is clear that prima facie a proper counting had not taken place. Therefore, prima facie it can be said to be an irregularity on the part of the Returning Officer involved in dereliction of the duty. Similarly, there is a specific allegation that out of 653 postal ballots, the election petitioner would have secured more than 300 votes, if properly counted, and out of the said votes, 142 votes which were validly polled in favour of the election petitioner, were illegally declared as invalid and another 52 votes polled in favour of the election petitioner were counted in favour of the first respondent, and 45 invalid votes were illegally counted in favour of the first respondent. Since the margin between the elected candidate and the nearest rival is only 236 votes, had postal ballots been counted properly, then there would have been a possibility of materially affecting the result of the election insofar as the returned candidate. So, under no stretch of imagination, can it be said that the allegations in the election petition are vague.
