Material facts in election petitions must be fully pleaded; omission of essential facts defeats the cause of action.

An election petition must plead all primary facts constituting a complete cause of action under Section 83(1)(a) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951; omission of a material fact is fatal, while defects in particulars may be cured later. Here, the petition failed to plead that waiver of the three months' notice period had been accepted before scrutiny and that the candidate had ceased to be a Government servant on that date, both being essential to the office-of-profit challenge and within the petitioner's knowledge. Voluntary retirement was also distinguished from resignation, as it requires employer permission and compliance with the notice requirement or waiver. The petition was therefore liable to dismissal.

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Issues: Whether the election petition disclosed the material facts necessary to plead a complete cause of action and, therefore, could proceed to trial.

Analysis: Section 83(1)(a) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 requires an election petition to contain a concise statement of the material facts on which the petitioner relies. Material facts are the primary facts necessary to formulate a complete cause of action; their omission is fatal, while defects in particulars may be cured later. In the present case, the decisive question was whether the appellant held an office of profit on the date of scrutiny. For that purpose, the petition was required to plead that the request for waiver of the three months' notice period had been accepted before scrutiny and that the appellant had ceased to be a Government servant on that date. Those facts were within the appellant's knowledge and were essential to meet the challenge to the returned candidates and to disclose a complete cause of action. The Court also held that voluntary retirement is not the same as resignation in service jurisprudence, since voluntary retirement requires the employer's permission and the prescribed notice period or its waiver.

Conclusion: The election petition did not contain the necessary material facts and was rightly dismissed.

Ratio Decidendi: An election petition must plead all primary facts constituting the cause of action, and omission of any material fact renders the petition liable to dismissal for want of disclosure of a complete cause of action.

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