Judge decides petition by picking chits

The Punjab and Haryana High Court in Chandigarh resorted to a unique way to dispose of a pending litigation.

The litigation was about an election petition where two candidates had got equal number of votes in the election to the panchayat of Nabipur village in Amritsar.

To solve the crisis, Justice Ajay Tiwari kept two chits, each with the name of one of the candidates written on it, and picked one at random. He then read out the name on the chit and declared that person the winner of the election.

Both the candidates had agreed to this unconventional method as they were keen on an early outcome.

There had been contention over the validity of 12 votes, over which the matter was referred to the election tribunal.

However, before the outcome, one of candidates, Jaspal Singh, moved the high court seeking justice.

The court sought all records from the election tribunal and a vigilance inquiry too was conducted. In the end, it was decided that both candidates had won 243 votes each.

This led to the piquant situation where the court was allowed to make the decision by drawing chits.

Jaspal Singh was announced the winner. The judge then disposed of the petition, which would otherwise have taken years for a final outcome.

This is not the first time the high court in Chandigarh has resorted to novel ways of putting an end to a pending litigations.

A couple of months ago, the high court was addressing a case involving a financial transaction.

The petitioner accused a person of not returning money, while the other claimed that the payment had already been made.

The court asked them to resolve the issue by swearing before god in a nearby Sikh shrine.

The process, where the person swore that he had paid the money, was supervised by the court and the other was convinced. The petition was thus disposed of.