Mandatory election procedure breaches can invalidate booth votes, but a re-poll needs express rule-based authority.

A society may maintain a representative challenge to an election process when it espouses a common member grievance, and Section 20 of the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, 1975 is not confined to the society's property claims; on that basis, maintainability was upheld. Mandatory voting directions were found to have been violated at two booths through ballot manipulation, lack of free voting, deficient identity verification and dual voting, amounting to tampering under the election rules; all votes in those booths were invalidated. In the absence of any express rule conferring such power, neither the Court nor the Returning Officer could order a re-poll, so the invalidation order remained operative for the affected booths only.

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Issues: (i) Whether the society that instituted the suit had locus standi and whether the suit was maintainable as a representative challenge to the election process; (ii) Whether the votes polled at the two booths could be invalidated for violation of mandatory election directions and tampering within the meaning of the election rules; (iii) Whether the Court or Returning Officer had power to order a re-poll in the absence of any such provision in the election rules.

Issue (i): Whether the society that instituted the suit had locus standi and whether the suit was maintainable as a representative challenge to the election process.

Analysis: A society formed to espouse the common cause of its members may maintain proceedings to ventilate a shared grievance. Section 20 of the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, 1975 does not confine civil proceedings only to the society's own property or claims. The challenge was not a mere attempt to stall an election after notification, but one seeking to regulate the election process, and the proceedings had also been effectively brought to the notice of the affected Bar Associations through the interim orders and monitoring directions. The requirements underlying representative litigation were treated as substantially satisfied.

Conclusion: The challenge to maintainability failed, and the suit was held maintainable.

Issue (ii): Whether the votes polled at the two booths could be invalidated for violation of mandatory election directions and tampering within the meaning of the election rules.

Analysis: Rule 20 required a voter to mark the ballot in private and place it in the sealed box, while Rule 25(2) empowered invalidation where the ballot box had been tampered with. The reports of the Special Observers showed that in one booth voters were not allowed to vote freely, ballot papers were manipulated, and the process was reduced to a farce; in the other booth voters were permitted to cast votes without proper identity verification and there was dual voting. The Court treated these acts as wholesale violation of the mandatory voting procedure and as tampering of the ballot boxes within the meaning of Rule 25(2), warranting invalidation of all votes cast in those booths.

Conclusion: The invalidation of all votes polled in the two booths was upheld.

Issue (iii): Whether the Court or Returning Officer had power to order a re-poll in the absence of any such provision in the election rules.

Analysis: The Bar Council of Tamil Nadu Election Rules contained provisions for voting, scrutiny, counting, invalidation and election disputes, but contained no provision authorising the Returning Officer or the Election Tribunal to direct a re-poll. The Court contrasted the Bar Council rules with the statutory scheme governing elections under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, where fresh poll powers are expressly conferred on the Election Commission. In the absence of an equivalent rule, no re-poll could be ordered.

Conclusion: No power to order a re-poll was available under the applicable rules.

Final Conclusion: Both recall applications failed. The earlier order invalidating the votes in the two concerned booths remained in force, and the election count was permitted to proceed for the remaining booths.

Ratio Decidendi: Where mandatory election procedures are deliberately violated and the record shows tampering or equivalent manipulation of the ballot process, the entire votes of the affected booth may be invalidated under the governing election rule, but a re-poll cannot be directed unless the rules expressly confer such power.

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