K L JAURA Vs. G S PATHAK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is a Reader in the Chemistry Department of the Punjab university, Chandigarh, while respondent 3 is a Lecturer in the Department of botany in the same University. The election to the Senate of the University were held on September 12, 1972, and the petitioner and respondent 3 contested for the seat of an Ordinary Fellow under Section 13 (1) (c) of the Punjab University Act, 1947, (hereinafter referred to as the Act ). Under that provision, two Ordinary fellows, one each from the Arts and Science Departments, were to be elected by readers and Lecturers on the staff of the teaching departments of the University from amongst themselves. There were in all 9 contestants for these two seats, their names being Sarvshri S. P. Choda (respondent 3), K. L. Jaura (Petitioner), D. D. Kapoor, R. D. Anand, Jaswant Singh Jiwan, Vishwa Nath Tewari, Madan g. Gandhi, R. S. Marya and Jagdish Chandra Sen. 300 votes were polled out of which 15 were held to be invalid and the quota was fixed as 96 under Rule 9 of the rules relating to Election of Ordinary Fellows printed in Volume III of Punjab university Calendar, 1972, at page 91. From the Arts side Shri Vishwa Nath Tewari was declared elected and from the Science side the petitioner was declared elected by the Returning Officer under regulation 20 of the Regulations relating to Election of Ordinary Fellows contained in Chapter II (B) of the Punjab University Calendar, volume I. This election had to be approved by the Chancellor. Shri S. P. Choda, respondent 3, filed an election petition which was entrusted for disposal to the committee consisting of the Vice-Chancellor, S. Narinder Singh and Shri G. L. Chopra. The Chancellor thereupon directed that the approval of the election of the petitioner shall remain in abeyance till the decision of the election petition by that committee. The petitioner then filed Civil Writ No. 3658 of 1972 in the Court objecting to the constitution of the Committee for the decision of the election-petition and prayed for the quashing of the order of the Chancellor. That petition was heard by R. N. Mittal, J. , and myself and was accepted. It was held by us that regulations Nos. 17. 2 and 17. 3 under which the Committee for deciding the election-petition had been constituted, were ultra vires Sections 31 and 38 of the act. That judgment is reported as Dr. K. L. Jaura v. Punjab University, (1973) 75 pun LR 833. As stated in paragraph 3 of the report, the first contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner in that case was that the Chancellor was the only authority to settle disputes regarding election of the members of the Senate and no Sub-Committee could be constituted under the Regulations framed under clause (a) of sub-section (2) of S. 31 of the Act as it had been expressly provided in Section 38 that all disputes relating to the constitution of the University were to be referred to the Chancellor for decision. It was further urged that the provisions of Regulations 17. 1, 17. 2 and 17. 3 of Chapter II (B) of the Calendar were ultra vires the provisions of the Act so far as they authorised the Syndicate to appoint a committee to decide the election petition. The Bench came to the conclusion that regulations 17. 2 and 17. 3 were ultra vires the Act and quashed the order of the chancellor keeping in abeyance the approval of the petitioner's election as an ordinary Fellow till the Committee had decided the election-petition. As a result of that decision, the Punjab University forwarded the election-petition of respondent 3 to the Chancellor for decision under Section 38 of the Act. The Chancellor gave a decision in favour of respondent 3 after hearing the petitioner, respondent 3 and the University. The order passed by the Chancellor is a speaking order giving reason in support of his decision and does not suffer from any legal infirmity. The petitioner has, however, felt aggrieved and has filed the present petition which has been opposed by the University and respondent No. 3.

(2.) THE first point argued by the learned counsel for the petitioner is that Section 38 of the Act is ultra vires Article 14 of the Constitution as it gives an arbitrary and unguided power to the Chancellor to decide election-petitions without prescribing any guidelines or the grounds on which the election can be challenged or set aside and no appeal has been provided against his decision. The argument is that the chancellor can decide each election dispute according to his own notions which can result in discrimination. In my view, the petitioner can not be allowed to urge this plea in this petition. In the earlier petition decided by the Division Bench, the position expressly taken by the petitioner was that the Chancellor alone, under section 38 of the Act, was the authority to decide election disputes and no committee could be constituted under the regulations framed by the Senate of the university for the purpose. He did not urge at that time that Section 38 of the Act was ultra vires and the decision of the Returning Officer declaring the petitioner as elected could not be challenged by respondent 3 by way of an election-petition before any forum. It was open to the petitioner to have urged that plea in that writ petition. He did not raise that plea and after the success of his petition, he submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the Chancellor and invited his decision in the election dispute with respondent 3 without raising any objection to his jurisdiction. Now that the decision has gone against him, he cannot be allowed to urge that the Chancellor had no jurisdiction to decide the matter. A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court (Chagla, C. J. , and Dixit, J. ,) observed in Gandhinagar motor Transport Society v. State of Bombay, AIR 1954 Bom 202, as under:-

(3.) ON the parity of reasoning, it can be said in the present case that the petitioner took a chance of decision in his favour by the Chancellor and after having taken full part in the proceedings before him, he cannot now be heard to say that those proceedings were held by the Chancellor without any jurisdiction.