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Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury v. Kripanath Mallah

Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 915Decided 24 Aug 2026
Civil Appeal No.7474 of 2025
Justice J.B. Pardiwala · Justice K. Vinod Chandran

Background

The appellant, an unsuccessful candidate, had filed an Election Petition challenging the 2024 Lok Sabha election result from the No.7 Karimganj Parliamentary Constituency, Assam, where the respondent was declared the winner. The respondent applied under Section 86 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 to have the petition thrown out at the threshold, citing defects in how the copy of the petition served on him was attested, an unattested Form-25 affidavit (used to support allegations of corrupt practices), and some allegedly missing pages. The High Court accepted the attestation objection and dismissed the petition outright, prompting this appeal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court was wrong to treat the differing rubber-stamp attestations ("attested to be true copy" versus "certified to be true copy") as defective, since both conveyed the same meaning and Section 81(3) does not prescribe any particular form of attestation: the petitioner's own signature taking responsibility for the copy is enough. The Court also rejected the argument that the missing-pages objection should have succeeded, agreeing with the High Court's finding that this was an afterthought. On the separate issue of the unattested Form-25 affidavit (relating to corrupt-practice allegations), the Court surveyed conflicting precedents and held that a defect there does not automatically warrant dismissal of the whole petition, only the corrupt-practice allegations may need to be struck off if genuinely unattested, while other independent grounds in the petition must still be tried on merits. The matter was sent back to the High Court to verify the Form-25 attestation and proceed accordingly.

Lesson Learnt

Procedural defects in how an Election Petition's copies are attested or certified do not automatically doom the case. Courts must look at whether the defect could genuinely mislead the other side, and even a real defect in one part (like an affidavit on corrupt practices) should not result in outright dismissal if other valid grounds remain to be tried.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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