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38 1923

THE PREVENTION OF ELECTORAL ABUSES ACT, 1923

PART IV.

Excuses and Exceptions for Corrupt Practices, etc.

Report exonerating candidate in certain cases of corrupt and illegal practice by agents.

27. —Whenever an election court reports that a candidate has been guilty by his agents of the offence of treating and undue influence and illegal practice or of any of such offences and further that the candidate has proved to the court—

(a) that no corrupt or illegal practice was committed at such election by the candidate or his election agent and that the offences mentioned in the said report were committed contrary to the orders and without the sanction or connivance of such candidate or his election agent; and

(b) that such candidate and his election agent took all reasonable means for preventing the commission of corrupt and illegal practices at such election; and

(c) that the offences mentioned in the said report were of a trivial, unimportant, and limited character; and

(d) that in all other respects the election was free from any corrupt or illegal practice on the part of such candidate and of his agents;

the election of such candidate shall not, by reason of the offences mentioned in such report, be void, nor shall the candidate be subject to any incapacity under this Act.

Power of High Court and election court to except innocent act from being illegal practice, etc.

28. —Where, on application made, it is shown to the High Court or to an election court by such evidence as seems to the Court sufficient—

(a) that any act or omission of a candidate at any election, or of his election agent or of any other agent or person, would, by reason of being a payment, engagement, employment, or contract in contravention of this Act, or being the payment of a sum or the incurring of expense in excess of any maximum amount allowed by this Act, or of otherwise being in contravention of any of the provisions of this Act, be but for this section an illegal practice, payment, employment, or hiring; and

(b) that such act or omission arose from inadvertence or from accidental miscalculation or from some other reasonable cause of a like nature, and in any case did not arise from any want of good faith; and

(c) that such notice of the application has been given in the constituency for which the election was held as to the court seems fit;

and in the circumstances it seems to the Court to be just that the candidate and the said election and other agent and person, or any of them, should not be subject to any of the consequences under this Act of the said act or omission, the Court may make an order allowing such act or omission to be an exception from the provisions of this Act which would otherwise make the same an illegal practice, payment, employment, or hiring, and thereupon such candidate, agent, or person shall not be subject to any of the consequences under this Act of the said act or omission.