MANJULI Vs. CIVIL JUDGE SENIOR DIVISION WARDHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this petition under Article 227 of the Constitution, the petitioner wants this Court to quash the order passed by the Civil Judge, Senior Division, as Election Tribunal under the Bombay Village Panchayats Act, 1958, in Miscellaneous Judicial Case No. 33 of 1966, on 8-8 1966.

(2.) THIS petition arises out of the elections to the village Panchayat of Sonegaon (Bai), Tahsil and District Wardha, Ward No. 2 of that village is a multi-member constituency with two seats in all. Out of them, one is a reserved seat for women and the other is a general seat. The election took place on 30-5-1966 and the votes were counted on 31-5-1966. In that Ward No. 2, there were only 5 candidates. Out of them, two were women, viz. . the present petitioner Manjulabai and one Anjanabai opponent No. 5. The other three candidates were men who are opponents 4, 6 and 7. The counting disclosed that Anjanabai got 104 votes, Mahadeo got 90 votes. Manjulabai got 30, Govinda pot 32 and Rambhau 1. The Returning Officer declared Anjanabai elected to the general seat as she polled the highest votes at the election and the only remaining women candidate Munjulabai who secured 30 votes was declared elected to the reserved seat for women. Against this declaration of result, Mahadeo, who secured 90 votes, filed an election petition before the Civil Judge on 15-6-1966. The only ground raised in the Election Petition was that after counting the votes correctly, the Returning Officer erroneously interpreted provisions of Rule 34 of the Bombay Village Panchayats Election Rules, 1959, and declared the results in a wrong manner. The learned Civil Judge accented this submission and interpreting the provisions of Rule 34 of the Bombay Village Panchayats Election Rules, 1959, he declared Anjanabai elected for a reserved seat and out of the remaining candidates, Myhadeo, who secured the next highest number of votes, was declared as elected for the general seat. Being aggrieved by this order. Manjulabai, who was originally declared elected but who lost her seat due to the result of the Election Petition, has filed this petition.

(3.) RULE 34 of the Bombay Village Panchayats Election Rules, 1959, under which the results have been declared is attacked in this case as bring unreasonable and unlawful. The substantive provisions relating to the reservation of seats for women in the Village Panchayat are to be found in Sub-section (2) of Section 10 of the Bombay Village Panchayats Act, 1958. The only reference in that section is that in every Panchayat two seats shall be reserved for women. There is no further guidance as to how this intention should be carried out. The general rule making power also does not specifically point out how this intention shall be carried into effect. In order to implement the provisions of this Act, the State Government has framed rules, called, the Bombay Village Panchyats Elation Rules. 1959, as also the Bombay Village Panchayats (Divisions of Village into Wards and Reservation of Seats for Women. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Rules, 1966. The rules of 1966 became operative from 12th April of 1966. The disputed election has taken place when both these sets of rules were in force.