Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

2. The petitioner of each of the case is making a complaint of epidemic caused by vires of illegal acts of the Election Officers and Returning Officers. The petitioner's case in different petitions are that nominations have been illegally rejected, names of the voters have not been included in the list or after publication of the final list, the names of the voters have been deleted from the electoral roll. The list supplied by the Municipal authorities shows the names of the petitioner, his proposer and seconder in a particular ward but it has been later on found that the proposer and seconder are not recorded in the electoral roll of the sad ward and list of the wrong ward has been supplied by the Municipal authorities, the Election Commission changed the Rules of the game after commencement of the game by issuing certain directions in relation to Additional Government Pleaders or Assistant Government Pleaders and the disqualification Clause has been wrongly applied. The choral argument in support of the petitions are that ordinarily the High Court may not interfere in an election matter but when the illegality is writ large, the violation of the Rules, regulations and law is manifest and the arbitrariness, whims and caprices of the Officers is floating on the surface of the record, the High Court to maintain the purity of the elections and to put a control over the Returning/Election Officers must exercise its jurisdiction in these election matters irrespective of Article 243-ZG of the Constitution of India.

12. The question relating to interference in the election matters and what particular steps are included in the election or the election process came up. for consideration before the Supreme Court in the matter of N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer . Their Lordships of the Supreme Court very categorically observed that the word 'election' has been used in Para XV of the Constitution in the wide sense, that is to say, to connote the entire procedure to be gone through to return a candidate to the Legislature. Their Lordships further observed that the term 'election' may be taken to embrace the whole procedure which consists of several stages and embraces many steps, whereby an "elected member" is returned, whether or not it be found necessary to take poll and the term is not used in a narrow sense. Their Lordships very candidly observed that rejection or acceptance of a nomination paper is included in the term 'election'. Their Lordships in the matter of N.P. Ponnaswami further observed:

15. The matter again came up for consideration before the Supreme Court in the matter of Mohinder Singh GUN. Chief Election Commissioner 1978 (1) SCC 405 and the Constitution Bench held that the High Court would have no jurisdiction to interfere in an election matter because of the absolute bar imposed under Article 329 of the Constitution of India. I am tempted to quote paras 2 and 3 of the said judgment.

2. Every significant case has an unwritten legend and indelible lesson. This appeal is no exception, whatever its formal result. The message, as we will see at the end of the decision, relates to the pervasive philosophy of democratic elections which Sir Winston Churchill vivified in matchless words:

31. The endeavour of the learned Counsel for the petitioners was to place reliance upon certain observations made by the Supreme Court in their earlier judgments to contend that the judgment , (the Election Commission) has not laid down the correct law. In the opinion of this Court, the argument is misconceived. When earlier judgments of the Supreme Court are interpreted by latter Bench of the Supreme Court, no Court can go contrary to the said interpretation. The interpretation made by the subsequent Bench would hold field so long as the said judgment is not overruled or reconsidered by the Supreme Court. In the matter of Election Commission of India v. Ashok Kumar and Ors. , the Supreme Court after taking into consideration the earlier judgments of the Supreme Court has provided certain guidelines in paragraph 32 of their judgment. From the judgment in the matter of Election Commission of India v. Ashok Kumar and Ors. (supra), it would clearly appear that the High Court shall be entitled to interfere in the matters, if the interference is to subserve the election, election process and not to interrupt or interfere with the election or the election process.