The High Court on Wednesday quashed the election of Congress MLA Dr Y Nagappa from Harihara constituency, while directing the State Election Commission (SEC) to conduct a recounting of votes and declare the results within a month.Justice V Gopala Gowda pronounced the order holding the declaration of Dr Nagappa as the winning candidate in 2004 Assembly elections as void, while allowing an election petition filed by defeated JD (S) candidate H Shivappa’s election agent.

Petitioner Prasanna Kumar, who was Mr Shivappa’s election agent had challenged the validity of returning Dr Nagappa as the winning candidate, while alleging discrepancies and malpractices in the course of counting of votes. He had alleged that Returning Officer and Assistant Returning Officer of the constituency were hand in glove with Nagappa and had committed errors in counting of votes to ensure Nagappa’s victory.

Prasanna Kumar had alleged that out of the 1,22,036 valid votes polled, only 1,21,208 had been counted. Counting of votes polled in 14 booths was improper with only 10,698 votes counted out of the 11,518 votes totally cast, he had stated. Nagappa had won by a small margin of 569 votes. As per the declared results, Nagappa had obtained 40,306 votes while Shivappa’s votes were at 39,797.

Recounting
Accepting the contentions, the Court set aside Nagappa’s election while directing SEC to appoint an officer within the next 10 days for recounting the votes, and to declare the results pursuant to the recounting, within a month. High Court Registry was directed to hand over all documents concerning the case, to SEC, immediately. The Court also directed the Returning Officer and the Assistant Returning Officer to pay Rs 15,000 and Rs 10,000, respectively, towards costs of the litigation.

Land acquisitions
The High Court on Wednesday upheld the acquisition of about 12 acre land in Yellur village of Udupi district for the purpose of Nagarjuna Thermal Power Project, while dismissing a plea from some land owners.
The Division Bench comprising Justice K Shreedhar Rao and Justice L Narayana Swamy observed that acquisitions could not be held to have lapsed only due to the delay in taking possession of lands. The Bench also overruled the land owners contention against the proceedings for taking possession of lands while holding it genuine.