MAJOR SINGH Vs. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A Market Committee for Patti was constituted under the Punjab Agricultural Produce Market Act, 1961 (hereinafter called the Act). One of the members of the said committee is to be elected by the Co-operative Societies in the notified market area, as is provided in Section 12(2)(b) of the Act. "Co-operative Society" for the purposes of the Act has been defined in Section 2(a) as under :-

(2.) The Punjab Agricultural Produce Market (Election to Market Committees) Rules, 1961 (hereinafter called the Rules), have been framed for election of the members of the Market Committee. Rule 3 provides for the preparation and the publication of electoral rolls and reads as under after amendment on October 11, 1966 :-

(3.) The election to the Market Committee, Patti, was held in October, 1968, and for the purposes of that election an electoral roll of the members of the Co-operative Societies in the market area was prepared on the basis of Form 'C' obtained from the Assistant Registrar, Co-operative Societies, in accordance with Rule 3(1)(iii) of the Rules. In this electoral roll were included the names of 279 individual members of Patti Co-operative Marketing-cum-processing Society, Patti, and 60 individual members of Shahid Co-operative Agricultural Service Society Limited, Shahid, tehsil Patti, district Amritsar, in addition to 98 Co-operative Societies. On the basis of this electoral roll, election was held on October 25, 1968, for the election of one member. The candidates were the petitioner and respondent 4, Gurdip Singh. Gurdip Singh obtained 175 votes while the petitioner obtained 172 votes and thus respondent 4 was declared elected. The present writ petition has been filed questioning the election of respondent 4 on the ground that the electoral roll prepared was defective and not in accordance with the Act and the Rules. It has been submitted that in the electoral roll 98 Co-operative Societies have been mentioned as members whereas, according to Rule 3(1)(iii) of the Rules, the members of these Co-operative Societies should have been mentioned as electors. It is admitted on both sides that on behalf of these 98 Co-operative Societies only one representative voted on behalf of each Co-operative Society. These 98 Co-operative Societies are members of Patti Co-operative Marketing-cum-processing Society Limited, Patti.