TATYASAHEB DASHRATH NIKAM Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RULE. Respondents waive service. By consent RULE is made returnable forthwith. By this petition, the petitioner seeks a direction against the respondent Nos. 2 to 4 to start the election programme of respondent No.3 society from the stage of voting.

(2.) THE facts giving rise to this Writ Petition briefly are as follows:

(3.) GENERALLY, this Court does not interfere with the election programme. However, in exceptional cases, this Court is certainly entitled to interfere under Article 226 of the Constitution. This is one of those exceptional cases where as stated hereinabove, the committee which is faced with order of supersession and which has faced proceedings under Section 78 of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act has sought to by-pass orders of this Court and under the above circumstances, we are inclined to interfere under Article 226 of the Constitution. It may be once again stated that the earlier Writ Petition No.6112 of 1997 came to be withdrawn and thereby objections raised to the holding of the elections came to be withdrawn whereas on the question of supersession of the committee, the matter stood remitted to the lower authority. In the light of the above facts, it is very clear that the entire exercise undertaken by announcing re-election programme de novo after enrolling 1735 new members was undertaken to by-pass the order passed by this Court in September 1998 in Writ Petition No.6112 of 1997. This is particularly done by including the additional 1735 member in the voters list for the de novo elections.