ABHESINHBHAI MAGANBHAI CHAURDHARY Vs. DIRECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is filed for the purpose of seeking following reliefs:

(2.) It is the case of the petitioner that petitioner is a member committee of Vyara Taluka Sahakari Kharid Vechan Sangh Ltd. and also a Chairman of APMC, Vyara. It is submitted that the Sangh is holding a valid licence of market committee and the committee members of the Sangh are the voters for ensuing election of APMC, Vyara for cooperative marketing constituency. It is further the case of the petitioner that the Director, Agriculture Marketing Rural Finance published election program of APMC, Vyara on 12.10.2017 by prescribing different stages for the election process. In that context, a preliminary voters list was published by Authorized Officer on 23.10.2017 and in view of such program, the names of the committee members of the Sangh were included in the cooperative marketing societies constituency of APMC,Vyara. It is also the case of the petitioner that there were 3 societies in the voters list of cooperative marketing society constituency and the name of the respondent society was not available in the voters list as the society was holding licence of market committee and was not fulfilling the eligibility criteria to be included in the voters list by virtue of Section 11 (1)(ii) of the Gujarat Agricultural Produce Markets Committee Act,1963 (for short 'the Act').

(3.) Mr.D.B.Rana, learned advocate appearing for the petitioner, has vehemently contended that pursuant to the election program, a preliminary voters list was prepared on 23.10.2017 reflecting on page-17 of the petition and then, the objections were invited within a period of 14 days as per the requirement. After considering the objections, a final date for tendering objections against the preliminary voters list was prescribed upto 17.11.2017 and till that, the name of respondent society was not reflecting at all as the society including its committee members was not eligible to be included as voter. By referring to this, it has been contended that neither at the time of initial publication of preliminary voters list, the name of respondent society was reflecting nor the name was figuring. But then only at the stage of further objection on 17.11.2017, respondent No.3 supplied the material and straightway thereafter, in the final voters list on 23.11.2017, for the first time respondent No.3 was introduced which apparently not permissible under any of the provisions authorizing such incorporation at the final stage. In the final voters list, as per the information, as many as 16 voters have been included on account of some unforeseen circumstance. As a result of this, the petitioner immediately made a representation but, since the same being not considered, the petitioner is constrained to approach this Court by way of present petition.