Election petition true copy requirement: omission of an incorporated video cassette made service defective and justified dismissal.

Non-service of a copy of a video cassette can render an election petition incomplete where the cassette is incorporated into the corrupt-practice pleading itself. Section 81(3) requires a true copy to be served on each respondent, and Section 86(1) mandates dismissal for non-compliance. Although a separate evidentiary document need not accompany a petition when the pleading is otherwise complete, omission becomes fatal when the document forms an integral part of the allegation and the corrupt practice cannot be fully understood without it. On that footing, the served copy was held not to be a true copy and dismissal was justified.

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Issues: Whether non-supply of a copy of the video cassette, referred to in the election petition as part of the corrupt-practice allegation, rendered the petition not a true copy and liable to dismissal under the election law.

Analysis: Section 81(3) requires every election petition to be served as a true copy on each respondent, and Section 86(1) mandates dismissal for non-compliance. Section 83 requires material facts and full particulars of corrupt practice. Where a document is merely evidentiary and the petition itself contains the complete pleading, no copy of the document need accompany the petition. But where the petition incorporates the contents of the document by reference so that the document forms an integral part of the pleading, omission of that document makes the served copy incomplete. The video cassette here was treated as part of the allegation itself, because the pleaded corrupt practice could not be fully understood without it.

Conclusion: The omission to serve a copy of the video cassette amounted to non-compliance with Section 81(3), and the election petition was rightly dismissed under Section 86(1).

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