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30. The plenary bar of Article 429(b) rests on two principles : (1) The peremptory urgency of prompt engineering of the whole election process without intermediate interruptions by way of legal proceedings challenging the steps and stages in between the commencement and the conclusion. (2) The provision of a special jurisdiction which can be invoked by an aggrieved party at the end of the election excludes other form, the right and remedy being creatures of statutes and controlled by the Constitution. Durga Shankar Mehta has affirmed this position and supplemented it by holding that, once the Election Tribunal has decided, the prohibition is extinguished and the Supreme Court's overall power to interfere under Article 136 springs into action. In Hari Vishnu this Court upheld the rule in Ponnuswami excluding any proceeding, including one under Article 226, during the ongoing process of election, understood in the comprehensive sense of notification down to declaration. Beyond the declaration comes the election petition, but beyond the decision of the Tribunal the ban of Article 429(b) does not bind."

19. In the light of the rival submissions made by the learned Counsel, the first point for our consideration is:

Whether the preparation of the electoral roll is a part of the election process so as to attract the bar of Article 429(b) of the Constitution?
In support of the submission that the preparation of electoral roll is not a part of the election process, the learned Counsel for the petitioner relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in LAKSHMICHARAN SEN v. A.K.M. HASSAN UZZAMAN, AIR 1985 SC 1233. The relevant portions of the Judgment reads:
"24. The only question which remains outstanding is whether the preparation and publication of electoral rolls are a part of the process of 'election' within the meaning of Article 429(b) of the Constitution.
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26. We have expressed the view that preparation and revision of electoral rolls is a continuous process, not connected with any particular election. It may be difficult, consistently with that view, to hold that preparation and revision of electoral roll is a part of the 'election' within the meaning of Article 429(b). Perhaps, as stated in Halsbury in the passage extracted in Ponnuswami , the facts of each individual case may have to be considered for determining the question whether any particular stage can be said to be a part of the election process in that case. In that event, it would be difficult to formulate a proposition which will apply to all cases alike."

Right from the earliest Judgment of the Supreme Court in PONNUSWAMY'S CASE, the Supreme Court in all its decisions on the point has laid down that the preparation of the electoral roll is not a process of election. Therefore, it is impossible to hold that any illegal omission to include the names of persons who are entitled to be included inspite of their application for inclusion made in the prescribed manner and within the prescribed time or illegal inclusion in the electoral roll of the names of persons who are not eligible to be included, is a part of the election process and therefore cannot be a subject matter of challenge in an election petition contemplated under Article 429(b) of the Constitution read with Section 100 of the 1951 Act. This aspect is laid down by the Supreme Court in NRIPENDRA v. JAI RAM VERMA, . That was a case in relation to an election to the Legislative Council of the State of Uttara Pradesh. In the electoral roll prepared for the concerned Local Authorities constituency, the names of persons who had ceased to be members of the Local Authority and consequently ineligible to be electors in the election, were included. After the election, the petitioner therein challenged the legality of the election in an election petition. One of the grounds raised was the illegality in the preparation of the electoral roll. The High Court accepted the contention and set aside the election. The Supreme Court reversed the Judgment of the High Court holding that the illegality in the electoral roll cannot be challenged in an election petition and that the election Tribunal had no jurisdiction to adjudicate upon such a question, reiterating similar view taken in HARI PRASAD v. V.B. RAJU, . The Supreme Court concluded thus: