decide election disputes itself. It had transferred this power to Courts by
statute and has not resumed it. In fact the law enacted in the Representation
of People Act 1949, by the British Parliament confirmed this transfer or
delegation of power. Section 107 of that Act makes it clear like Art 329 (b) of
our Constitution that the stautory remedies are the only ones open for
election disputes.
591. The reasons why the House of Commons itself saw the need for
entrusting to a rota of High Court Judges the jurisdiction at one time
exercised by it directly to determine its election disputes is found thus stated
by BLACKSTONE, quoting Erskine May's "Parliamentary Practice and
Procedure" (at p. 153-155);
"For a considerable time after the house had obtained this jurisdiction
controverted elections were tried by committees specially nominated
composed of privy councillors and burgesses, well qualified for the duties
entrusted to them. But after 1672 it became an open committee, in which all
who came had voices and at length a hearing at the bar of the House was
considered preferable to an inquiry by a committee. Here again to use the
words of Sir Erskine May, "the partiality and injustice of the judges was soon
notorious. Parties tried their strength – the friends or rival candidates
canvassed and manoeuvred, and seats corruptly gained, were as corruptly
protected or voted away. Such were the results of the usurpation of judicial
functions by a popular body."
In order to remedy, if possible, these unquestionable evils, the statute 10
Geo III C. 16 called from its author the Grenville Act, was passed in 1770 and
the trial of election petitions transfered to a select committee of thirteen
members, which it was thought would be 'a court independent of the house,
though composed of its own members'. For a time there was a marked
improvement in the decision of controverted elections. 'But too soon it became
evident that corruption and party spirit had not been overcome. Crowds now
attended the ballot, as they had previously come to the vote – not to secure
justice but to aid their own political friends'. The party, whether of the
petitioner or sitting member which attended in the greatest number
inevitably had the numerical majority of names drawn for the committee and
from this list, the petitioner and sitting member struck out alternately one
name until the committee was reduced to thirteen: the majority of the house
was necessarily a majority of the committee. The result it was not difficult to
foresee. Though the members were sworn to do justice between the rival
candidates yet the circumstances under which they were notoriously choosen,
their own party bias and a lax conventional morality favoured by the
obscurity and in consistencies of the election law and by the conflicting
decisions of incapable tribunals led to this equivocal result: that the right was
generally discovered to be on the side of the candidate who professed the
same political opinions as the majority of the committee'.
'By these means the majority of the hose continued with less directness
and certainty and perhaps with less open scandal to nominate their own
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