The presence of not less than half of the total elected members was necessary for a valid election of the President and Vice-President of a Panchayat Samithi.

A. D. V. REDDY, J. ,, J.

( 1 ) 1. This is an appeal against the order of our learned brother parthasarathi, J. , in W. P. No 8669 of 1970 allowing the petition under article 226 of the Constitution and setting aside the election of the president and Vice-President as well as the co-option of some of the members of the Guduru Panchayat Samithi at the meeting held on 18-7-1970.

( 2 ) AFTER the Governor of Andhra Pradesh bv his order amended the Gram Panchayats Act and the Panchayat Samithis and Zilla parishads Act, providing inter-alia that in respect of the Panchayats and panchayat Sarnithis in scheduled areas persons belonging to the Scheduled tribes alone shall be eligible for election to the offices of President and vice-President, the election to the Gram Panchayat held in contravention of that order came to be challenged in the High Court in w. P. No. 3319 of 1970 and by the order dated 17th July 1970 those elections were set aside. On the following day i. e. 18th July 1970 at the special meeting of the Gudur Panchayat Samithi the co-option of members and election of the President and Vice-President took place. These were challenged in the writ petition, which is the subject matter of this appeal on several grounds, viz,. (1) that the nomination for the seats that had fallen vacant should have been made before the election was held ; (2) that there was no necessary quprum for the meeting held on that day; (3)that as Gudur lies in the schemed areas; only persons belonging to the scheduled tribes are eligible for election as President and Vice-President, Our learned, brother Parthasarathi, J. , over-ruled the firsthand third objections, but held that with regard to the second objection, the meeting held on 18th, July 1970 suffered from want of quorum In that view, he allowed the petition as stated above. Hence this appeal.

( 3 ) IN this appeal the only point that is canvassed before us is with regard to the order of the Court relating to the quorum, The decision on this question depended on the interpretation of Rule 4-A of the Rules for election framed under the Act, which runs as follows :"no meeting for the conduct of election of members specified in clause (v) of sub-section (i) of Section 4 of the Act shall be held unless there be present at the meeting at least one half of the number of members then on the Panchayat samithi. "

( 4 ) THE meaning of the words "the number of members then, on the Panchayat Samrthi" came to be considered by our learned brother parthasarathi, J. , and he found that what was meant was the total elected strength and not the actual number of members validly elected on that day. Viewing it from that stand-point, as the members present at the meeting were only 12 and not half of 27 which was the total strength, he held that the necessary quorum for the meeting that day for the elections to be conducted was not present and allowed writ petition setting aside the elections. As pointed out by our learned brother, when there are two possible interpretations of the provision, the. one which is consistent with the working of the system which the statute purports to regulate, has to be adopted, as laid down in Shannon Realities Ltd. v. Ville De St. Micheal. It is Obvious that what was intended by the provision was that all the elected members should have a controlling voice in the election of the sarpanch, not only those who were validly elected on that day, as otherwise, it would be easy to manoeuvre as was done in this case for the election of the President and Vice-President of a particular group only by a small number of elected members, the election of some members having been set aside on the previous day. The quorum contemplated, therefore, is the presence of not less than half of the total elected members, as that would reflect the wishes of the electorate as such. We, therefore, agree with the interpretation. placed on the words "the number of members then on the Panchayat Samithi" by our learned

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