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We will make good the relevance of these critical statements with reference to the incontrovertible facts of this case. However, we do not delve into the minutiae of evidence or span the entire factual range, that being otiose. A catalogue of circumstances, fair to both sides, will tell its own moral tale and so we set it out.

The last date for completing the electoral roll was April 17, 1974. The rival candidates (the appellant and the 1st respondent) belonged to opposing political parties but the appellant"s party was in power. Both the candidates had semi-V.I.P. status in their respective parties. One member more in the Legislative Council would, pro tanto, strengthen the Ministry. This political backdrop be lights some of the things which occurred on the, dates proximate to the completion of the electoral roll. The administrative locomotion and the human motivation behind what the trial judge had described as 'manouvres' is simple to understand, although, as will be shown below, we do not agree wholly with all the deductions of the High Court. A particular party is in office. The strength of its members in both Houses is therefore of political significance, especially if fluid Politics turns out to be the field of all possibilities. Karnataka has a bicameral legislature, and it is reasonable to suppose that the political government has an understandable concern in the election of a member of the Legislative Council, who will be of their party. Bidar district in Karnataka has a local authorities constituency seat, to be elected by the members of the local bodies there. It follows that the potential electors who are likely to favour their candidate must be brought on the rolls to ensure his victory. Inevitably there was therefore keen interest in incorporating in the electoral roll the members of the Taluk Development Board, Bidar (for short, the Bidar Board). The election to the Bidar Board had taken place years ago, 11 of them having been elected way back in 1968 and 8 later. The election of the 11 members had been duly notified in 1968 but the Board itself stood suspended, an Administrator having been appointed to run its affairs. 8 members who had been later elected to the Board landed up in the High Court on account of writ petitions filed by their rivals. Stay had been granted by the High Court and this led to an absence of 2/3 of the total members being able to function, statutorily necessitating the appointment of an Administrator. Long later the High Court disposed of the writ petitions whereby 3 returns were set aside and 5 upheld. The arithmetical upshot of these happenings was that there were 16 members duly elected to the Bidar Board, and the High Court having disposed of the writ petitions in June 1972, the local body could have been liberated from the bureaucratic management of an Administrator and allowed to function through elected representatives. All that was needed to vivify this body of local self-government was a notification under the Mysore Village Panchayats Act X of 1959, terminating the Administrator's term, and perhaps another extending the terms of some members. Elections to local bodies and vesting of powers in units of self government are part of the Directive Principles of State Policy (Art. 40 of the Constitution) and, in a sense, homage to the Father of the Nation, standing as he did for participative democracy through decentralisation of power. Unfortunately, after holding elections to the Bidar Board and making people believe that they have elected their administrative representatives at the lowest levels, the State Government did not bring to life the local board even long after the High Court had disposed of the challenges to the elections in June 1972. A government, under our Constitution, must scrupulously and energetically implement the principles fundamental to the governance of the country as mandated by Art. 37 and, if even after holding elections Development Boards are allowed to remain moribund for failure to notify the curtailment of the Administrator's term, this neglect almost amounts to dereliction of the constitutional duty. We are unhappy to make this observation but power to the people, which is the soul of a republic, stands subverted if decentralisation and devolu- tion desiderated in Art. 40 of the Constitution is ignored by executive inaction even after holding election to the floor-level administrative bodies. The devolutionary distance to ideological Rajghat from power-jealous State capitals is unwillingly long indeed, especially in view of the familiar spectacle of long years of failure to hold elections, to local bodies, supersession aplenty of local self-government units, and gross inaction even in issuing simple notifications without which elected bodies remain still-born. 'We, the people' is not constitutional mantra but are the power-holders of India from the panchayat upward.

Back to the main trend of the argument. It became now compulsive for the party-in-power to de-notify the Administrator and revive the elected body if they wanted the members of the Bidar Board to vote perhaps in favour of their candidate. The 11 members elected long back in 1968 could not vote, on account of the expiry of the 4year term unless in view of s. 108 of Act 10 of 1959, the government issued another notification extending the term of office of these members. So the elective interest of the candidate of the party-in-power could be promoted only if three or four quick administrative steps were taken. Firstly, there was to be a notification ending the Administrator's term over the Bidar Board. Secondly, there was to be a notification extending the term of the 11 members elected in 1968. Thirdly, there was to be a notification of the election of the 5 members whose return had been upheld in the High Court in June 1972. Fourthly, the electoral roll had to be amended by inclusion of these 16 names. If these steps were duly taken, 16 additional members would become electors and the party-in-power (if these electors be-longed to that party or were under its influence) could probably expect their votes. The poll results show that the contest was keen and these 16 votes would have been of great moment. In this high-risk predicament, long bureaucratic indolence in issuing notifications and political indifference to the functioning of local bodies produced a situation where the elected roll did not contain the names of the 16 members of the Bidar Board.

Only a few days prior to April 17, 1974-the D-day-the affected candidate, i.e., the appellant, moved the government for initiation of the steps mentioned above' but nothing happened. On April 16, the day before the crucial date for closing the electoral roll, i.e., the last date for making nominations, the appellant moved the Minister concerned who was in Bidar to get the necessary administrative steps taken quickly. He also moved the returning officer, RW 2. We find the Minister making an endorsement on the petition. We notice the returning officer seeking telegraphic instructions from government. We see government sending an Under Secretary, PW 3, by air from Bangalore to Hyderabad and onward by car to Bidar with some orders. This PW 3 probably apprised the returning officer RW 2 about orders having been passed raving the way for inclusion of the 16 names in the electoral roll. PW 3, the Under Secretary, for reasons not known, makes a bee-line the same evening to Gulbarga where be meets the Minister. The returning officer does not have with him any gazette' notifications. as we see that under s. 2(20) of Act X of 1959, a notification must possess the inalienable attribute of publication in the official gazette. Admittedly, the returning officer did not come by any of the necessary notifications before the evening of the 17th. Admittedly, he did not have any gazette notifications before April 25th. Under s. 27 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the electoral registration officer who, in this case, is also the returning officer, had to have before him gazette notifications which clearly he did not have till the 25th, i.e., 8 days after the relevant date. Nevertheless he, obligingly enough including the 16 names which was in breach of the legal provisions. Frenzied official movements on and after April 16 are visible in this case. The scenario excites suspicion. The candidate meets the Minister of his party on the 16th. The returning officer takes the unusual steps of sending a telegram for instructions from government for inclusion of names in the electoral roll. The Secretariat despatches an Under Secretary to reach Bidar by air dash and long car drive. A meeting between the Under Secretary and the electoral registration officer follows and then the Under Secretary winds up the day by meeting the Minister, presumably to report things done, and the registration officer supplements the electoral roll by including 16 more names, without getting the gazette notification. We have no doubt, as we will presently explain, that this inclusion is invalid, but what we are presently concerned with is the protracted inaction for years of the State government in issuing simple notifications to resuscitate the Bidar Board and the sudden celerity by which a quick chase and spurt of action resulting in a Minister's endorsement, the regis- tration officer's telegram, Secretariat hyper busyness, the unusual step of an Under Secretary himself journeying with government orders to be delivered to the registration officer, the electoral registration officer hastening to amend the, electoral roll slurring over the legal require- ment of a gazette notification and making it appear that everything was done on the 17th before mid-night, and a few other circumstances, make up a complex of dubious doings designed to help a certain candidate belonging to the party- in-power.

Shri Bhat, counsel for the 1st respondent, argued his case strenuously but could not make out that vital nexus between the candidate who stood to gain and the officers whose action he impugned. More. over, the movements of the Minister at about that time raises doubts and- the huge expenditure involving in rushing an Under Secretary from Bangalore by air and road to Bidar were a drain on the public exchequer which could have been avoided if action had been taken in time by a few postal communications. But the trial judge erred in substituting suspicion for certitude and drawing untenable inferences where paucity of evidence snapped the nexus needed for collusion. A court must, as usual, ask for proof beyond reasonable doubt from the party setting up corrupt practice even when there is a veneer of power politics stooping to conquer and officers thereby becoming vulnerable to 'higher displeasure. The faith of the people in the good faith of government is basic to a republic. The administrative syndrome that harms the citizens' hopes in the State often manifests itself in callously slow action or gravely suspicious instant action and the features of this case demonstrate both. Pi Admittedly, the Bidar Board elections were substantially over in 1968 and were more or less complete in 1972 and yet the necessary notifications in the gazette, which are the statutory precondition for the local body to be legally viable, were, for years, not published and, when the critical hour for the electroal list to be finalised fell at 3 p.m. on April 17, 1974, the government and its officer,,, went through exciting exercises unmindful of legal prescriptions and managed the illegitimate inclusion of 16 names in the electoral roll. We hope that the civil services in charge of electoral processes which are of grave concern for the survival of our democracy will remember that their masters in statutory matters are the law and law alone, not political superiors if they direct deviance from the dictates of the law. It is never to be forgotten that our country is committed to the rule of law and therefore functionaries working under statutes, even though they be government servants, must be defiantly dedicated to the law and the Constitution and, subject to them, to policies, projects and directions of the political government.