The Hon’ble Allahabad High Court vide its judgment dated 15.03.2024 in the case of “Jay Prakash & Anr. Vs. Anjula Singh Mahaur & Anr.” had the occasion to deal with whether the provisions of the Limitation Act, 1963 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Limitation Act’) have any application in cases filed under the Representation of People’s Act, 1951(hereinafter referred to as the ‘Representation Act’) or is the Representation Act a complete code in itself.
Factual Matrix:
The Petitioners being the electors from Hathras, Sadar constituency have filed an election petition seeking to impugn the election of Respondent No. 1 in the last Assembly Elections which happened in 2022 in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The ground raised by the Petitioners was that Respondent No. 1 despite being a ‘Thakur’ by caste has fraudulently portrayed herself to be of the ‘Kori’ caste and has contested elections from the seat that was reserved for the Scheduled Caste category.
The mandate of Section 81 of the Representation Act clearly stipulates that any petition filed under the Representation act has to be filed within 45 days from the date of election of the returned candidate. However, in the present case, the Petitioners had filed the election petition after a delay of 655 days.
The Petitioners have contended that they should get the benefit of Section 17 of the Limitation Act which entails that in cases where a period of limitation is specified in the Act but the case is based upon fraud committed by the Defendant, then the period of limitation in such cases shall not begin to run until the Plaintiff has discovered the said fraud or could, with reasonable diligence, have discovered it; or in the case of a concealed document, until the Plaintiff first had the means of producing the concealed document or compelling its production. In the present case, the Petitioners contend that they became aware about the fraud by Respondent No. 1 on 25.01.2024 and filed the present Petition on 08.02.2024. Thus, the petitioners contended that deriving the benefit of Section 17 of the Limitation Act, the present Petition was filed within the limitation of 45 days as prescribed by Section 81 of the Representation Act.
Analysis:
The Hon’ble Allahabad High Court dismissed the said Election Petition vide its judgment dated 15.03.2024. The High Court while relying on the decisions passed by the Hon’ble Apex Court in the cases of “K. Venkereswara Rao & Anr. vs. Bekkam Narsimha Reddi & Ors., AIR 1969 SC 872” and “Hukumdev Narayan Yadav vs. Lalit Narain Misra, AIR 1974 SC 480” held that the Representation Act is a complete code in itself and hence, in effect, the provisions of the Limitation Act have no application to petitions which are filed under the Representation Act. Thus, the present Petition which was indisputably filed after a delay of 655 days is hit by the mandate of Section 81 of the Representation Act and is liable to be dismissed as being barred by time.