BRANMAYYA Vs. CHINTAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) JUDGMENT of the Court was delivered by the Hon'ble The Chief Justice. This is a petition under Art. 226 t the Constitution of India to quash the order of the Election Commissioner, Gudivada, setting aside the election of the petitioner as Vice-President of the Ventrapragada Panchayat. Ventrapragada Panchayat Board consists of a President and 8 members. Elections to the panchayat were held on 27-2-1953. One Chelsani Kutumba Rao was elected as President and the petitioner, the 1st respondent and six others were elected as members. The President convened a meeting of the panchayat on 7-9-1953 for the election of a Vice-President. The petitioner and the 1st respondent competed for the office. All the members of the Panchayat including the President, voted at the meeting. The petitioner secured 5 votes and the 1st respondent four votes and petitioner was duly declared elected as Vice-President. The defeated candidate i.e. the'1st respondent filed an election petition, before the Election Commissioner to set aside the Election on the ground that the President had no right to vote at the election meeting and, therefore, if his vote was excluded, there would have been equality of votes atd, if lots were drawn, he might have been successful. The Election Commissioner accepted his contention and set aside the election. The present writ is filed to quash that order. Learned Counsel for the petitioner contends that-the President of a Panchayat Board is a member of that Board and is, therefore, entitled to vote at all meetings including that held for the election of a Vice-President, whereas learned Counsel for the 1st respondent contends that, under the Madras Village Panchayats Act, a clear distinction is maintained between an ordinary meeting and a meeting specially convened for the election of Vice-Ptesident that the President can exercise only the powers conferred on him under the provisions of the Act and the rules framed thereunder in regard to the latter meeting and that those provisions do not entitle him to vote. The question raised falls to be decided on the interpretation of the relevant-provisions of the Act and the rules framed thereunder. Section 2(16): Panchayat means the body constituted for the local administrtion of a village under this Act. Section 2 (14): Member means a member of a panchayat. Section 21 (7): The president shall be an ex-officio member of the panchayat and shall be entitled to vote at meetings of the panchayat. Section 6 (1): The total number of members of a panchayat exclusive of its president shall be notified by the Inspector in accordance with such scale as may be prescribed with reference to population. Section 7: The members of the panchayat shall be elected in such manner as may be prescribed. Under Section 20 of the Act, there shall be a President and a Vice-President for every panchayat and, under Section 21, the president shall be elected by the persons whose names appear in the electoral roll for the panchayat, from among themselves. The total number of members of the panchayat, exclusive of the president, would be notified by the Inspector. The members would be elected from different wards into which the panchayat is divided. The President is also an ex-officio member of the panchayat and is entitled to vote at the meetings of the panchayat. A member has been defined as a member of the Panchayat and, therefore, the president is a member of the panchayat. It follows that, if the election of the Vice-President is held at a meeting, the President certainly, as a member of the Panchayat, is entired to vote at that meeting. Section 22 provides that the Vice-President shall be elected by the Panchayat from among its members. In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 112 of the Act, the Government made rules for the election of Vice-President of Panchayats. Rule 1 says that the election of a Vice-President of a Panchayat shall be held in the office of the Panchayat at a meeting specially convened by the President for the purpose and that such meeting shall be presided over by the President or in his absence, by a member of the panchayat not intending to stand as a candidate at the election, chosen by the meeting to preside for the occasion. The other rules prescribe machinery for election. Under Rule 5 (3), the election is held by every member recording his vote in the ballot paper and placing the same in the ballot box of the candidate for whom the box is assigned. Under the rules, therefore, the election of the Vice-President is held at a meeting of the Panchayat by taking the votes of the members in the manner prescribed. The president, being a member of the Panchayat entitled ro vote under Section 21 (7) of the Act, is not expressly precluded by the provisions and the rules from exercising his right to vote conferred on him under the Act. But, it is said that, as under the rules he conducts the election and presides over the meeting, the word ''member" used in (he rules must necessarily exclude him. But, this suggestion, if accepted, deprives not only the President of his right to vote but also that of a member other than the President, who is elected to preside over the meeting in his absence. That could not have been the intention of the rule-making authority and that cannot be readily inferred unless the conclusion is irresistible, for, by so construing the provisions, a member is deprived of a valuable right of franchise, which is conferred on him under the Act. If it be held in the case of a member-president that he is entitled to vote, a different interpretation cannot be placed en the same, rules in the case of a president presiding over a meeting. It is the general law of meetings that a president or a chairman is not deprived .of his ordinary vote as a member of that body, and the provisions of the Act or the rules framed thereunder do not lay down a different rule. On a fair reading of the provisions of the Act and the rules framed thereunder, it appears to us that the president, being a member, is entitled to vote at the election of the Vice-President held in a meeting of the panchayat. Learned Counsel for the 1st respondent contends that a right to voce or to exercise franchise at an election must be expressly conferred by a statute and that the provisions of the Act clearly make a distinction between an ordinary meeting of the panchayat and that where the election to the office of Vice-President is held and that the right to vote conferred on the president can only be exercised in an ordinary meeting of the panchayat. This conclusion he seeks to derive from the provisions of Sec. 24 of the Act. Section 24 runs thus : " The President shall (a) make arrangements for the election of the Vice-President .(b) convene the meeting of the panchayat. It is contended that clause (a) and clause (b) are mutually exclusive and that, under clause (a), the president makes arrangements for the election of the vice-president and under clause (b) he convenes the ordinary meetings of the panchayat. We do not see any conflict between the two provisions. The president or some other authority necessarily will have to make arrangements for the election of the vice-president, such as issuing notices, preparing ballot boxes, getting ballot papers printed and making other arrangements to maintain the secrecy of the ballot. Under clause (b), he is authorised to convene meetings of the panchayat and the said clause does not make a distinction between a meeting where the ordinary business of the panchayat is conducted and a meeting where an election is held. Under that clause, therefore, the President is authorised to convene every meeting to be held under the Act or the rules framed thereunder, and this necessarily includes a meeting for the conduction of elections. Nor can we hold from the different procedure prescribed for the election meeting and an ordinary meeting that the president's right to vote is confined only to an ordinary meeting. Section 38 provides that the proceedings of every panchayat and of all committees theteof shall be governed by such rules as may be prescribed, and the Government have made rules in exercise of the powers conferred under the section. The rules prescribe the procedure for issuing notices for the meeting for the holding of meetings, for the passing of resolutions, for voting at the meetings etc. The Government again in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 112 of the Act made special rules for the conduct of a meeting where the election of a vice-president is held. Doubtless, the provisions of the two sets of rules differ in some respects and it will necessarily be so because of the difference in the nature of the business conducted in the said meetings. The same procedure followed in an ordinary meeting cannot be effective in an election meeting, for, in the former special provisions will have to be made for secret ballotting. The fact that two different sets of rules govern two categories of meetings will not make the meeting, where an election is held, any the less a meeting held under the Act. We cannot also accept the learned Counsel's contention that the meeting, when an election is held, is not a meeting of the panchayat. Neither Section 20, which says that there shall be a president and a vice-president for every panchayat nor Section 35, which prescribes that every meeting of the panchayat shall be presided over by the president, in his absence, by the vice-ptesidtnt and in the absence of both the president and the vice-president by a member chosen by the meeting to preside for the occasion, can be read in the way the learned Counsel asks us to do. He argues that there is no validly constituted panchayat unless both the president and the vice-president are elected and, therefore, the meeting held for the election of the vice-president cannot be a meeting of the panchayat. Section 20 deals with the constitution of a panchayat and Section 35 provides that the vice-ptesident should preside in the absence of the president. The fact that a panchayat should consist of a president and a vice-president does not mean thar whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the vice-president, there is no panchayat. Section 20, in our view, deals with the constitution of the board and Section 35 provides for a contingency, namely, the absence of the president when the vice-president will function. Nor can we see any principle for excluding the president from taking part in the election of the vice-president. Under the provisions of the Act, the president is eletted by the voters of the entire panchayat and the members are elected only by the voters of the respective wards. If the members are the elected representatives of their respective war is, the president is the representative of the entire panchayat and, if the former were entitled to vote for the election of the vice-president, there is a greater reason why the president should also have the right to take part in it. Nor does the suggestion that there should be a person like a President with an objective outlook to conduct the election appeal to us. Firstly, it is difficult for the president of a panchayat board to have an objective outlook, for he invariably belongs to one party or other and the smooth progress of his tenure would depend upon the majority of the members, who support him at the meetings. That apart, that could not be the legislative intention as the rules themselves provide that, in case the president was absent, one of the members who obviously would be a partisan could be elected to preside over the meeting. It is, therefore, clear that there is greater reason for the Legislature to empower him to vote at the election of the Vice-President rather than to bar him from doing so. We shall now consider some of the cases cited at the Bar. In Vithoba Chimnaji v. Govind Rao Vithal Rao one of the questions raised was whether rule 18 made by the Government under the C. P. Local Self-Government Act was inconsistent with the express provisions of the Local Self Government Act. It was contended, inter alia, that the outgoing Chairman of the the Local Board was, under Section 14 of the Act, alone entitled to preside at an eleetion meeting, as at any other meeting, that, under the same section, in the absence of the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman, the members have the right to choose one of their number to preside at the election meeting and that Rule 18, which empowered the Deputy Commissioner to convene a meeting of all the newly elected and appointed members of the Local Boards prescribing at least seven days notice for such a meeting, was inconsistent with section 14. In negativing the contention, the learned Judges observed at page 197: " The rules governing the election meeting ami those regulating ordinary business meetings are distinct. Thus evidently clauses, 4, 5 and 6, Section 79, deal with matters which relate to the constitution of the District Councils and Local Boards whereas CI. 26 has reference to the conduct of administrative business of those bodies after they are fully constituted. It is obvious that the meetings which are convened for the purposes of election stand on a differrent footing from ordinary business meetings. The rules affecting the two kinds of meetings in respect of the authority to convene them, period of notice, quorum, the presiding authorities of the meetings and the solution of a tie in case of equality of votes are materially different. These features lead to the irresistible conclusion that the meeting convened for the election of a president after the formation of a new board is not contemplated by the words any meeting' used in Section 14 ". It may be that the two meetings are regulated by different procedure and it may also be that, in the context of a particular section, the word "meeting" is used to mean the regular business meeting and not the election meeting. These facts in themselves cannot make a meeting, where an election is held, any the less a meeting under the provisions of the Act or the rules framed thereunder. In the present case, there is no essential conflict between the provisions of the Act and different sets of rules prescribed for a meeting where ordinary business is conducted and that where the election of a vice-president is held. All the provisions and the rules can be consistently read if the natural meaning of the word 'meeting" is given. We need not, therefore, as in the Nagpur case confine "meeting" in Section 21 (7) to a meeting where ordinary business is conducted. The decision in Nesaraddin Mandal v. Anath Nath Chowdhury does not advance the case of the 1st respondent any further. There, it was held that Rule 8 and other rules relating to meetings under clause (3) subsection (2), Sec. 101 of Act V of 1919 did not govern meetings of the members of the Union Board convened by Government officers for the purpose of electing a President after a general election. As Rule 8 provided a definite time for the issue of notice, the rules governing the election of the president after a general election did not provide any such time. The learned Judges held that there was considerable difference between the nature oi meetings of members of the Union Board summoned under Section 8 and the rules made thereunder and a meeting of' the Board summoned under rules framed by clause (3) of sub-section 2 of Section 101 of the Act. The learned Judges were resolvirg a conflict between the two provisions to ascertain whether notice of the prescribed time was necessary in the case of the election of the presidenr held in that case and they held, having regard to the provisions they were considering, that the rules prescribing notice did not apply to other meetings In the present case, the petitioner is not seeking to apply the rules prescribed for a meeting where ordinary business is conducted to a meeting where election is held. Satyanarayana Raju J. in Ramakotiah v. Bapaniah accepted the view suggested by the 1st respondent. But, with great respect to the learned Judge, for the reasons mentioned in out judgment, we regret our inability to accept his view. The decision in Rex v. Jackson, Pick Exparte may usefully be referred to in this connection. The parish councillors of the parish of Deeping Saint Nicholas went out of office. In the new elections, 9 persons were elected councillors but the Chaitman of the old council was not elected as councillor. Under Sub-Section 8 of Section 3 of the Act of 1894 the previous Chairman continues in office until his successor is appointed. The question was whether the previous chairman, who continued to be in office till the new chairman was elected was entitled to vote. It was contended that, although the Chairman continued in office, he did so only for the purpose of exercising certain necessary ministerial functions such as summoning the first meeting of the new council and that he was not entitled to vote at the meeting, unless of course he was elected councillor of the new council. In rejecting the argument, Ridley J. made the following observations at P. 440. '' In my oppinion it is impossible to hold that his continuance in office was for the purpose of exercising some only and not all of the duties of a chairman and a member of tho Council, unless there are to be found in the Act some words clearly defining those of his functions which he is not to exercise...............Now it is quite clear that the chairman of the council is a member of it, for as I have already pointed out, section 3, subsection 1 provides that the council shall consist of a chairman (who may be elected from outside land councillors. Therefore at the first meeting of the new council tho Chairman of the old council is entitled to be present although he is not a councillor, but because being chairman he is a member of the council and as a member he is entitled to vote." These observations apply to the instant case and we respectfully adopt them. In the result, we hold that the president was entitled to vote at the election of the vice-president and, therefore, the petitioner wa validly elected as Vice-President in the election held on 7-9-1953. The order of the Election Commissioner is, therefore, quashed. The 1sr respondent will pay the costs of the petitioner. Advocate's fee Rs. 100/-. T. A. B. Order quashed.