UTTAMSINGH RAMBHAU CHAVAN Vs. GANESH SHIVASINGH CHAVAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this writ petition, the petitioner has challenged the judgment and order dated 23-12-2005, passed by the Civil Judge, Junior division, Malkapur in Election Petition No. 2/2005. In the said Election Petition, filed under section 15 of the Bombay Village Panchayat Act, 1958, the petitioner challenged the rejection his nomination paper by the respondent No. 2 and consequential Election of respondent No. 1 as un-opposed. The petition has been dismissed by the Lower Court, and this Court has issued Rule in the matter on 6-3-2006. The petitioner has thereafter moved Civil Application No. 5146/2006, for grant of early hearing, and by consent of parties, the petition has been heard finally, at that stage only because of the nature of controversy and short point involved.

(2.) The contention of petitioner is that it is not necessary for petitioner/candidate to supply caste certificate along with his nomination paper and rejection of his nomination paper by the respondent No. 2 is bad.

(3.) Facts in brief are that, the petitioner wanted to contest the elections of gram Panchayat at village Datala in June, 2005. The petitioner belongs to scheduled Tribe and his tribe is "pardhi". Seat from ward No. 4 was reserved for scheduled Tribe candidate. The petitioner accordingly submitted his nomination paper from the said reserved category and he contends that along with the nomination paper he also supplied xerox copy of the caste certificate. At the time of scrutiny on 6-6-2005, when the petitioner was present along with all the originals, along with original of his caste certificate, though no body raised any objection to the nomination paper of the petitioner, the respondent No. 2 returning Officer called upon the petitioner to show caste certificate, and thereafter at about 5. 30 p. m. , final voters list of validly nominated candidates was published by the respondent No. 2. Name of petitioner was not appearing in it and upon enquiry he came to know that his nomination paper is rejected. He thereafter collected copies of the order rejecting his nomination paper and found that it was only a cryptic order which mentioned that his nomination paper was rejected because despite granting opportunity petitioner did not produced caste certificate. He then approached the trial Court by filing election petition. The court trying election petition framed issued and after placing reliance upon the notification issued by the State Election Commission on 21-12-1995, found that the nomination paper of petitioner was not accompanied by any caste certificate.