STATE OF KERALA Vs. DAMODARAN NAIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two Writ Appeals have been filed against the judgment of a learned Single Judge of this Court dated 8-9-1980 allowing O. P. No. 2636 of 1980 filed by the common respondents in these two writ appeals and quashing the notification Ext. P2 dated 24-11-1979 issued by the Director of Municipalities, Trivandrum, effecting a delimitation of the wards of the newly constituted Pathanamthitta Municipality and specifying which amongst those wards are the reserved wards for women and for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, as well as the order Ext. P3 passed by the Director of Municipalities rejecting a representation dated 23-2-1980 filed by the petitioner requesting that the fixation of ward No. 20 as the reserved ward for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes should be modified.

(2.) Pathanamthitta was a Panchayat until recently but on 25-9-1978 the Government ordered it to be constituted into a Municipality. S.56 of the Kerala Municipalities Act, hereinafter called the Act, provides:

(3.) The writ petitioner is a person residing in the locality which falls within the proposed ward No. 20 of the new Municipality. According to him, he had the intention of standing for election for membership of the Municipal Council from the said ward and his chances were quite bright. All those hopes were however completely shattered when the petitioner found that by the final notification issued as per Ext P2 dated 24-11-1979, ward No. 20 has been fixed as the reserved ward for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes with the consequence that the petitioner who is not a member of the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe community is denied an opportunity to stand for election from the said ward. According to the petitioner the procedure followed by the Director of Municipalities (2nd respondent in the O. P.) in finalising the delimitation of wards was illegal inasmuch as he had not complied with the mandatory requirement of S.56(1) of the Act that there should be a due publication of the objections put forward, to the proposals contained in the preliminary notification and a public hearing of the objections before the proposals are finalised. It was mainly on this ground that the petitioner sought to quash Exts. P2 and P3.