that Shri Yashpal Kapur was actually asked by Smt. Gandhi to go to Rae
Bareli to do anything for her election on this visit, but there is ample
absolutely unshaken evidence of Shri Yashpal Kapur to the contrary,
supported by the evidence of the Prime Minister herself which the learned
trial Judge had, for some reason, entirely ignored. In any case it is utterly
unthinkable that the Prime Minister herself could have conceivably
authorised Shri Kapur to go to Munshiganj and make a public speech while
he was till a Government servant, to support her candidature. And, if he had
no authority from her either to act generally or to do any particular act on
her behalf how could each and every action of Shri Kapur possibly make the
Prime Minister legally liable vicariously for it?
422. The learned Judge, as is evident, from his summary of evidence and
conclusions relied on circumstantial evidence only. But, in order that the
circumstances should have a conclusive effect, so as to exclude any
reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt, they had to point in one direction
only and in no other. What is the position that emerges from a consideration
of the circumstances found and detailed by the learned Judge himself? It was
held that Shri Yashpal Kapur was occupying a position of trust and
confidence with the original respondent for quite a long time. Indeed his
evidence shows that he was so attached to the family of the original
respondent and the political and national causes its members had
represented that he was just the type of person who could, even without the
slightest suggestion on the part of the original respondent, voluntarily taken
upon himself the duty to do whatever he could do in his private capacity to
help her return at the election. Indeed his private capacity as a person
attached to the family of the original respondent and to the causes espoused
by its members, could very well be considered more important by him than
his Government service. And, this is exactly what the findings given by the
learned Judge relating to services rendered by Shri Yashpal Kapur at the
previous elections of the original respondent, showing how he had resigned
his post on a previous occasion to help in her election, indicated.
423. In the passage from the judgment quoted above, the learned Judge
draws an inference of a previous instruction, from the Prime Minister to Shri
Kapur, to say what he is alleged to have said in a speech, because, inter alia.
Shri Kapur met the Prime Minister on his return from Rae Bareli; Again, the
necessary inference of a previous intimation by Shri Kapur to the Prime
Minister of his intention to visit Rae Bareli, could not be that there was any
authority or direction given by the Prime Minister to Shri Kapur to do or to
say anything on her behalf All this would lie in the realm of pure conjecture
and suspicion. It left other possible and more reasonable inferences wide
open.
424. The learned Judge had himself held, so far as use of rostrums is
concerned that the Prime Minister sheds her personality, as the holder of her
office, and assumes the role of a mere candidate as soon as she ascends a
platform to make an election speech. But, when the learned Judge deals with
the action of Shri Kapur, in making a speech from a platform at a martyrs
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