NUNNA VEERRAJU Vs. DISTRICT MUNSIF OF RAMACHANDRAPURAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are applications for the issue of writs of prohibition restraining the Election Commissioners constituted under the Rules framed under the Madras Village Panchayats Act, 1950, from proceeding to hear and dispose of the election petitions filed before them. All the above petitions raise a common question for decision and can therefore be conveniently disposed of by a single judgment.

(2.) The contentions of the learned counsel for the petitioners may be stated thus: The Government, purporting to exercise the rule-making power conferred upon them, created a tribunal vesting it with all the powers of a Court to decide election disputes but characterising the said tribunal as persona designata making its decision final. The constitution of the Election Commissioner is unauthorised, unconstitutional, illegal and void as the rule-making authority is not in tact empowered by the enabling statute to create such a tribunal. Even it it is empowered, it is beyond the competence of the State Legislature to so empower the Government as the creation of a tribunal as the one in question is primarily a legislative function, which is non-delegable in nature.

(3.) On the other hand the learned Advocate-General, appearing for the Government, submits that the rules framed by the Government under Section 112 (2) (i) appointing Election Commissioners to hear election disputes under the Madras Village Panchayats Act are intra vires and valid; that on a proper construction of the relevant provisions of the Village Panchayats Act, the Government is empowered to frame rules for the constitution of tribunals to hear election disputes; that the Election Commissioner so appointed is not a Court stricto senso and that the conferring of such powers does not tantamount to an excessive or unconstitutional delegation.