ORDER : 1. This writ petition has been filed by Bajrang challenging the order dated 09.09.2016 passed by learned Senior Civil Judge, Khetri, District Jhunjhunu, who thereby allowed the election petition filed by respondent Shivram @ Sheoram and set-aside the election of the petitioner as Sarpanch of Gram Panchayat Kala Khari. The petitioner was elected as Sarpanch of Gram Panchayat Kala Khari on 24.01.2015. The respondent in the election petition stated that as per the schedule of election, nomination papers were to be received on 23.01.2015 from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM and scrutiny was to commence on that date at 10:50 AM, whereas withdrawal of the nomination form could be made at 3:00 PM. According to the allegation of the respondent, he submitted his nomination form to Returning Officer at 10:00 AM on 23.01.2015. The Returning Officer illegally rejected his nomination form on the premise that he had more than two children born to his wife after the cut off date. Learned court below, while allowing the election petition, observed that the respondent had produced the complete academic record of his children. There was minor mistake in the nomination form. In fact mistake lay in indicating date of birth of third child and description of second child in Column 2 of Clause 3 rather than in Clause 1, which was a minor mistake and could be corrected. Certificates could have been obtained with regard to correct date of birth of the children but the Returning Officer did not do so. In the documents relating to date of birth of the children had given a complete series. He could not file birth certificate of the children at the time of nomination. Though his last two children had till the time of filing of nomination were already 10th pass and had the academic certificate containing the date of birth. The Returning Officer therefore did not give any opportunity to the respondent to rectify the same. 2. Mr. J.P. Goyal, learned senior counsel for the petitioner, argued that learned Election Tribunal has committed serious error of law in allowing the election petition holding that the Returning Officer committed illegality in rejecting the nomination of the respondent on the ground that he was having more than two children on the cut off date i.e. 27.11.1995. 2. Mr. J.P. Goyal, learned senior counsel for the petitioner, argued that learned Election Tribunal has committed serious error of law in allowing the election petition holding that the Returning Officer committed illegality in rejecting the nomination of the respondent on the ground that he was having more than two children on the cut off date i.e. 27.11.1995. The respondent was disqualified to contest the election in view of the bar contained in Section 19(l) of the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act, 1994. The Election Tribunal failed to appreciate that as per the guidelines of the State Election Commission, he could ignore in the nomination form increase of this one child in addition to already having numbers of children. While the respondent no.1 has concealed the said fact and made mention in the nomination form that on 23.04.1994 he had two children but in the said column, in which details of the child born from 23.04.1994 to 27.11.1995 were sought, date of birth of his son Narendra has been shown as 05.12.1994. The respondent mentioned the date of birth of his daughter Anita as 06.06.1995 but there is overwriting and interpolation in Clause 3(A) because he initially mentioned total number of children begotten till 23.04.1994 as three, but it was scored out and thereafter rewritten as two. The respondent therefore concealed the material fact with regard to total number of children born between that period as to while the date of birth of son Narendra was 05.12.1994, which ought to have been indicated in Column (b) between the period 23.04.1994 to 27.11.1995. In this column, the respondent mentioned having only one child. The Returning Officer called upon the respondent no.1 to explain all this anomaly, but he did not present himself to clarify this. The Returning Officer was perfectly justified in rejecting the nomination paper on the ground of respondent no.1 having more than two children on 27.11.1995. 3. It is argued that a careful reading of nomination paper would indicate that the respondent no.1 had more than two children after the cut off date and therefore was ineligible. Learned senior counsel laid much emphasis on the fact that while the respondent no.1 indicated date of birth of Anita as 06.06.1995 but this date could not be accepted as the date of birth because it was impossible to have begotten third child within 180 days of the birth of previous child. Learned senior counsel laid much emphasis on the fact that while the respondent no.1 indicated date of birth of Anita as 06.06.1995 but this date could not be accepted as the date of birth because it was impossible to have begotten third child within 180 days of the birth of previous child. Since the date of birth of Narendra was described as 05.12.1994, it would be impossible that Anita would have been born on 06.06.1995. Learned senior counsel for petitioner in support of his arguments, has relied on judgment of the Supreme Court in Kisan Shankar Kathore Vs. Arun Dattatray Sawant and Others – AIR 2014 SC 2069 . 4. Mr. Sudhir Yadav and Mr. Amit Jindal, learned counsel for the respondents, opposed the writ petition and submitted that the respondent no.1 in the affidavit filed along-with the nomination form indicated the date of birth of his son Narendra as 05.12.1994, Jyoti as 30.06.1989 and Anita as 06.06.1995. The respondent no.1 indicated the number of children as on 23.04.1994 as two. Mere fact that initially he wrote three children, then he scored it out and separately wrote two, would not be a defect in the nomination paper, particularly when the respondent no.1 gave names and date of birth of all his three children, which were born up to 23.04.1994, with date of birth of Narendra as 05.12.1994, Jyoti as 30.06.1989. It is for this purpose that the respondent no.1 also separately indicated the date of birth of one child Anita born between 23.04.1994 and 27.11.1995, as 06.06.1995. The Returning Officer mechanically rejected his nomination paper and did not even indicate the reason for rejection except merely stating that nomination was rejected for the reason relating to children being more than two. 5. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the material on record, this court finds that the Returning Officer has rejected the nomination form of the petitioner on the assumption that he had more than three children after cut off date i.e. 27.11.1995, although in the order of rejection he has not elaborated this to be the cause but has merely stated that nomination was rejected for the reason relating to the issues being more than two, but it has not been specifically indicated as to whether the petitioner had more than two children and had third child born after 27.11.1995. In fact perusal of the nomination paper produced on record indicates that the three children of the petitioner were born respectively on 30.06.1989, 05.12.1994 and 06.06.1995. In other words, none of the children of the respondent no.1 was born after the cut off date i.e. 27.11.1995. The fact that the respondent no.1 initially indicated three children in Column 3(A) as on 23.04.1994 and scored it out and wrote two children, would not make any difference because the respondent no.1 already in that very column indicated name of Narendra with date of birth as 05.12.1994, Jyoti with date of birth as 30.06.1989. In the column subsequent thereto, i.e. Column No.3, a candidate was required to give the number of child born between 23.04.1994 to 27.11.1995. If the respondent no.1 wrote number of children to be two as on 23.04.1994, that would not be a major and significant defect in the nomination paper because the petitioner had separately indicated the name of the children being Jyoti with date of birth as 30.06.1989, Narendra with date of birth as 05.12.1994 and Anita with date of birth as 6.6.1995. Obviously the respondent no.1 was required to indicate the date of birth of Narendra as 05.12.1994 not in Column 3(A) but in subsequent Column 3(B) where the details of the children born between 23.04.1994 to 27.11.1995 were to be given. Name of Narendra, whose date of birth was 05.12.1994 should have been indicated in this Column, however, the respondent no.1 correctly indicated name of Anita, whose date of birth was 06.06.1995. 6. The argument of learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner that it was not possible for the respondent no.1 to have begotten two children within the gap of mere six months, cannot be accepted for the simple premise that this was not the reason wherefor nomination of the respondent no.1 was rejected by the Returning Officer. Considering the date of birth of all three children, it can safely be said that none of them were born after the cut off date i.e. 27.11.1995. It could be a matter of evidence, if or not the last child was born premature, but that question does not appear to have been agitated before the Election Tribunal and therefore need not be gone into by this court either. This court had an occasion to deal with this question in Ratiram Vs. It could be a matter of evidence, if or not the last child was born premature, but that question does not appear to have been agitated before the Election Tribunal and therefore need not be gone into by this court either. This court had an occasion to deal with this question in Ratiram Vs. Devi Charan and Another – 2010 (3) WLC (Raj.) 75, where election of Sarpanch was set aside on the ground of third and fourth issue to the petitioner therein. Proviso (iv) of Section 19(1) of the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act, 1994 reiterated in that judgment, which is also relevant for the present case. The legislature has provided this proviso with the intention that the birth of a child during the period from the original date of commencement of the Act i.e. 23.4.1994 and the date of commencement of the amendment Act i.e. 27.11.1995, shall not be taken into consideration for the purpose of disqualification. Obviously, the date of birth of two children of the respondent no.1, namely, Narendra was 05.12.1994 and Anita was 06.06.1995,and the same do not fall within these two dates. This court in Ratiram, supra, rejected the argument that since proviso (iv) of Section 19(1) of the Act of 1994 uses the phraseology “an additional child” and therefore, only one child could have been begotten between these two dates, could have been considered for purpose of disqualification. In para 6 of the judgment in Ratiram, supra, this court held as under:- “It would be evident on perusal of proviso (iv) to Section 19 that the legislature intended to exclude the additional child born between the original date of commencement of the Act i.e. 23.4.1994 and the date of commencement of the amendment Act i.e. 27.11.1995. It is not in dispute that wife of the petitioner gave birth to two additional children namely a daughter Priyanka on 8.7.1994 and a son Bablu on 12.10.1995. By mere reason of the fact that proviso (iv) at one place has used the expression an additional child, the learned Election Tribunal was not justified in concluding that only one child would be excluded for the purpose of computation of outer limit, so as to determine the disqualification attached to a candidate. There is no warrant for attributing such a restricted meaning to the phraseology used by the legislature. There is no warrant for attributing such a restricted meaning to the phraseology used by the legislature. In the later part of the proviso (iv), it is clearly stated that a person having more than two children, excluding the child, if any, born during the period from the date of commencement of the Act to 27.11.1995, shall not be disqualified. Expression the child used in later part of the proviso is comprehensive enough to indicate that legislature intended the children born between the above referred to two dates for being excluded. It could be one child or even two. Even otherwise, Sec-14(2) of the Act of 1955 categorically provides that in all Rajasthan laws, unless a different intention appears, words in the singular shall include the plural and vice versa. It cannot be said that the use of the word an additional child indicates any different intention of the legislature because no such contextual meaning can be attached to that proviso, particularly when the complete reading of the proviso clearly leads to only one interpretation that if a person is having more than two children, excluding the child, if any, born during the period from the date of original commencement of the Act i.e. 23.4.1994 to 27.11.1995, he shall not be disqualified so long as the number of children, he had on the date of commencement of this Act, does not increase. Commencement of the Act has to be taken as the starting point and 27.11.1995 as the terminal point and the children born between these two dates viz. original date of the commencement of the Act and the date of commencement of the amendment Act being excluded, the petitioner would not be disqualified under clause (l) of Section 19, to contest the election.” 7. original date of the commencement of the Act and the date of commencement of the amendment Act being excluded, the petitioner would not be disqualified under clause (l) of Section 19, to contest the election.” 7. While, the Returning Officer has mentioned in the rejection order that the respondent no.1 was called upon to explain regarding the fact whether he was not having more than two children during the period fro 23.04.1994 to 27.11.1995 but the respondent no.1 has contested this by asserting that he was never called upon by the Returning Officer to explain but once this court comes to the conclusion that both the children born between 23.04.1994 to 27.11.1995 were liable to be excluded in the total count, the rejection of nomination paper by the Returning Officer in either way is liable to be declared illegal and has rightly been declared so. 8. In view of the above, there is no merit in this writ petition and the same is accordingly dismissed. Stay application is also dismissed.