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Judgment
Palok Basu, J.—Urdu is generally regarded as a language of convening deepest of feeling in prose and poetry, articulate and intensely expressive. India can be proud of having given birth to such profound language as Urdu and particularly the State of Uttar Pradesh gets the credit of being the birth place of the "Urdu Zuban" whereafter it flourished as a language throughout the Nation. It is so close to Hindi which is the mother tongue of most of the people of Uttar Pradesh. Just as Urdu is also the mother tongue of a large part of the populace. At times, it become difficult to differentiate the expressions of the two languages because most grammatical principles are common in Hindi and Urdu. While it is true that in writing Urdu, the persian script is used, while writing Hindi, Devnagri script derived from Sanskrit, the pronunciation of most of the words in the two language is more or less the same, in addition, in Urdu language one gets specific pronunciation of such words as ''Z'' ''Khha'', ''ghha'' which may not he available in Hindi language and likewise some vowelish expressions such as ''U'' or ''ULT (3, 3) are more prominent in Hindi. However, in the State of U.P. there had been legislation followed by necessary Government notifications which made Hindi the official language. But in the recent past there has been a State law making Urdu also an official language with Hindi.
The petitioner Mohd. Akhtar Churiwala has filed this writ petition with the prayer that a mandamus be issued commanding the respondents to issue ballot papers printed in Hindi and Urdu both in the constituency of Farrukhabad of the State of Uttar Pradesh for the election of Member of the Legislative Assembly about to be held soon.
Sri Ranvir Singh, learned Counsel for the petitioner has been heard at substantial length so much so that he prayed for time to file a supplementary affidavit, which was allowed and he had filed the same. The grievance raised by the petitioner is that in the ballot paper which is supposed to be used in the forthcoming ByeElection in Farrukhabad, the name of the candidates have been printed in Hindi language and therefore, Official Language Act as per notification of U.P. State has been flouted. When the matter was argued last it was pointed out by the Court that such election are conducted by the Election Commission and the State Government has no authority in the matter. Consequently, in the supplementary affidavit some provisions have been relied upon by the learned Counsel inasmuch as the amended Rule 30A framed under the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, has been quoted.
It may be mentioned here that while under the old Rule 30 the provision was that every ballot paper shall have a counterfoil attached thereto and the said ballot paper and the counterfoils shall be in such form and the particulars therein should be in such language or languages as the Election Commission may direct."
By the amended Rule 30 it has been provided by adding Rule 30A that every ballot paper "shall be of such design as the Election Commission may decide."
However, all the relevant provisions of the aforesaid rules are not being mentioned here. To cut short the matter, it is indisputable that the ballot papers are printed under the authority of the Election Commission.
If there is any direction to be issued for the election proposes, concerning the language or the manner or printing or preparing of ballot paper, it is Election Commission alone which has the authority under the law. In this connection the attention of Court was drawn to the alleged representations forwarded by the petitioner to the Election Commission itself. (See Annexure 7, 8 and 9.) On the one hand the petitioner alleges that all ballot papers should be printed in Hindi and Urdu both, on the other it is admitted to the learned Counsel that is only the Election Commission that has to take a decisions in this matter. The printing of ballot papers in certain areas at the instance of the Election Commission in Hindi appears to be based on material which the Election Commission may have collected itself. How and in what manner a particular ballot paper will have to be printed appears to be in the exclusive domain of the Election Commission. It has the machinary to collect its data. Moreover, it may be added that the petitioner does not dispute that the ballot papers do have printed the individual election symbols agains each candidate. Thus there is no chance of any failure to indicate the candidate for whom the voter wants to vote. From this point of view this writ petition is purposeless.
It may be mentioned here that Shri Ranvir Singh relied upon two cases of Hon''ble Supreme Court in order to lend support to his argument. He cited A.I.R. 1995 S.C. 604Dr. Mohd. Ismail Faruqi v. Union of India and A.I.R. 1995 S.C. 464 State of West Bengalv. AsutoshLahiri. In the first case the Hon''ble Supreme Court was concerned with some of the questions which were raised regarding alleged Ayodhya disputes while in the other it was concerned with Calcutta High Court''s order that sacrificing a particular animal on a particular religious festival was not necessary. Both the cases are totally besides the point and have no relevant to the question sought to be raised.
In view of the aforesaid discussions, it is hereby held that the printing of the ballot papers is within the exclusive jurisdiction by the Election Commission of India. It is a part of process of conducting an election which has to be completed in accordance with the provisions of the Representation of People Act and such rules as Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, etc. framed thereunder.
In the result, the writ petition is dismissed summarily.