LADU LAL Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application for writ by Ladulal under Art. 226 of the Constitution by which the general election made to the Municipal Board, Sarwar, on the 26th November, 1959, is sought to be quashed.

(2.) THE petitioner is a member of the Municipal Board, Sarwar. His case is that the Tehsildar Sarwar who was the Returning Officer published a notice dated the 21st October, 1959, calling upon the residents of this Municipality to proceed to polls. A certified copy of this notice setting out the programme of the election is annexure No. 1 according to which the polling was to take place on the 25th November, 1959 and the result of the election was to be announced on the next following date, that is, 26th November, 1959. THE election was accordingly held on the 25th November, 1959, and the result thereof was announced on the 26th November, 1959. It is obvious from a perusal of this notice that the Returning Officer was under the impression that the Rajasthan Town Municipalities Act, 1951 (No. XXIII of 1951) was still in force. THE petitioner's case, however, is that the new Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 1959 (No. XXXVIII) of 1959 ( hereinafter referred to as the Act of 1959 ) had come into force on the 17th October, 1959, by which the Act of 1951 had been repealed, and, consequently, any election held in accordance with the provisions of the earlier Act after the 17th October 1959 was of no legal effect whatsoever and deserves to be quashed. It appears that Shri Madansingh Mehta who was and is the chairman of this Municipal Board, which is still functioning, addressed a letter to the Secretary to the Government in the Local Self-Government Department of this State in which he pointed out that the aforesaid election which had been carried out without fulfilling the requirements of the Act of 1959 was illegal and that the Government be pleased to set it aside. ( See annexure No. 3 ). This letter, however, seems to have had no effect. On the nth December, 1959, the Return-ing Officer issued a further notification (this was obviously issued under sec. 9 (5) of the Act of 1959) whereby he called upon the newly elected members to attend a meeting of the Board which was fixed for the 22nd December, 1959, for the purpose of co-opting two women members to the Board. THEreupon, Shri Madansingh chairman of the Board sent a telegram to the Collector, Ajmer, requesting that the entire procedure followed by the Returning Officer in connection with the general election of this Board was arbitrary and illegal and that he should be stopped immediately from taking further steps in connection with the co-option of certain members to the Board without any delay. He even went to the length of administering a threat that he would not allow the newly elected members to enter the bounds of the municipality's office as they were usurpers in the eye of law. To this telegraphic communication the Collector, Ajmer, is alleged to have sent a reply dated the 15th December, 1959, in which it was stated that the circumstance under which the election of the Sarwar Municipal Board had been conducted had been conveyed to the Government and that further instructions were being awaited and that meanwhile further proceedings for the co-option of women members had been stayed. As the State Government failed to take any effective action in the matter under the circumstances which have been narrated at length above, the petitioner filed the present writ application in this Court on the 29th July, 1960. It seems that there has been a stalemate meanwhile and the old Board which had been elected to this municipality in 1956 is still continuing in office.