Exceptional circumstances of flagrant illegality and abuse of power justify court interference in election disputes despite the general principle against entertaining writ petitions challenging the legality of acceptance of nomination papers.

( 1 ) IN these writ appeals, following two questions of law arise for consideration: (1) whether this court has no jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to interfere with any illegality, committed in the course of holding election to the offices of any authority/body, which is regulated by statutory Provisions, if the law provides for filing an election dispute challenging the legality of the election of the candidates declared elected? (2) if the answer to the above question is in the negative, then under what circumstances this court should exercise or should decline to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the constitution?

( 2 ) BRIEF and undisputed facts of the case are these: the 2nd respondent-the taluka agricultural produce co-operative marketing society (t. a. p. c. m. s.) is a co-operative society constituted and functioning under the Karnataka Co-Operative Societies Act, 1959 ('the act' for short ). The area of its operation is Bangalore north taluk. Under Section 16 of the Act, any other co-operative society can be admitted as its member. The agricultural co-operative societies (vyavasaya seva sahakara sanghas) established at various places in the taluk, are its members. Matters relating to election to the managing committee of the society are regulated by the Provisions of the act and the rules framed thereunder. In respect of certain classes of co-operative societies, Section 29-c (5) of the act empowers the state government to prescribe one of the conditions of eligibility for election. It reads: "29-c. Disqualification for membership of the committee. (5) in the case of co-operative marketing societies, consumers co-operative societies and such class or classes of co-operative societies as may be specified by the state government, by notification in the official gazette, no member shall be eligible for being appointed or elected as a member of the committee of such co-operative society if he does not fulfil the minimum qualifications relating to his transactions with the co-operative society upto such monetary limits as may be specified from time to time in such notification. " As can be seen from sub-section (5), it confers power on the state government to specify, by notification in the official gazette, the minimum qualification relating to the transactions of members upto such monetary limits and to say that members who do not fulfil such qualification shall not be eligible for being appointed or elected as a member of the committee of the society of which they are members.

( 3 ) IN exercise of the power under Section 29-c (5), the state government issueda notification on 25th january, 1991. It reads: "government of Karnataka No. Cmw. 5. cpc/87. Kamataka govt. Secretariat, m. s. building, Bangalore, dated 25-1-1991. Notification in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (5) of Section 29-c of the Karnataka Co-Operative Societies Act, 1959 (Karnataka act 11 of 1959), the government of Karnataka hereby specify that in case of the classes of cooperative societies specified in column (2) of the table below, no member shall be eligible for being appointed or elected as a member of the committee of such co-operative society, if he does not fulfil the minimum qualifications relating to his transactions with the co-operative society of the monetary limits specified in the corresponding entries in column (3) thereof.

( 21 ) THE next question for consideration is, whether this is a fit case in which we should interfere. Normally illegal acceptance of nomination papers do not constitute a substantial injury to the other eligible candidates. It is well settled principle in law governing resolution of election disputes that in the case of illegal acceptance of nominations, the election of a candidate can be set aside only if it is proved by evidence that the result was materially affected on account of illegal acceptance of one or more nomination paper