why the legislators wisely interdicated not only the incurring but also the authorising of excessive expenditure by a candidate. When the political party sponsoring a candidate incurs expenditure in connection with his election, as distinguished from expenditure on general party propaganda and the candidate knowingly takes advantage of it or participates in the programme or activity or fails to disavow the expenditure or consents to it or acquiesces in it, it would be reasonable to infer, save in special circumstances, that he impolitely authorised the political party to incur such expenditure and he cannot escape the rigour of the ceiling by saying that he has not incurred the expenditure, but his political party has done so. A party candidate does not stand apart from his political party and if the political party does not want the candidate to incur the disqualification, it must exercise control over the expenditure which may be incurred by it directly to promote the poll prospects of the candidate. The same proposition must also hold good in case of expenditure incurred by friends and supporters directly in connection with the election of the candidate." 491. After making the above-mentioned observations, the apparently broad sweep of the observations was limited as follows : "It may be contended that this would considerably inhibit the electoral campaign of political parties but we do not think so. In the first place a political party is free to incur any expenditure it likes on its general party propaganda though, of course, in this area also some limitative ceiling is eminently desirable coupled with filing of return of expenses and an independent machinery to investigate and take action. It is only where expenditure is incurred which can be identified with the election of a given candidate that it would be liable to be added to the expenditure of that candidate as being impliedly authorised by him. Secondly if there is continous community involvement in political administration punctuated by activated phases of well-discussed choice of candidates by popular participation in the process of nomination, much of unnecessary expenditure which is incurred today could be avoided." 492. It is not necessary to quote further from the judgement which suggests taking of steps for reform of electoral machinery so as to ensure "choice of candidates by popular participation in the process of nomination", because that would take us into a territory beyond mere interpretation of the law as it exists. It is clear from the passages cited and later parts of the judgment that the earlier decisions of this Court, requiring proof of authorisation by the candidate of the election expenditure for which he could be held responsible, and, in particular Rananjaya Singh v. Baijnath Singh, (1955) 1 SCR 671 = (AIR 1954 SC 749) which I shall refer to again a little later, are considered. It is enough to observe that the passages quoted above rest on the assumption that where there are special circumstances in a case which constitute a political party an implied agent of the candidate himself, the candidate will be responsible. It was also suggested there that a political party itself must exercies some control over the expenses of the candidate it sets up. The objection was to a candidate merely using the political party as a