1. Rule. Heard forthwith by consent of parties.

2. Nomination form of the petitioner to contest the municipal election as councillor of Municipal Council, Wanadongri, District Nagpur from Ward No. 6B has been rejected by the Returning Officer on the ground that it was not accompanied by mandatory certificate in form no. 2 issued by a political party which sponsored her. The rejection came on 26th June 2018. Since the order of rejection or acceptance of the nomination form is appellable under Rule 15 of the Maharashtra Municipal Councils And Nagar Panchayats Election Rules, 1966 (for short, the “Election Rules”), the right of appeal was availed of by the petitioner aggrieved by the decision of the Returning Officer rejecting her nomination form. The learned District Judge by his order dated 5.7.2018 dismissed the appeal. Being aggrieved by the same, the petitioner is now before this Court in the present writ petition.

3. There has been an objection taken to the maintainability of this writ petition on the ground that the nature of the order is such that it cannot be called in question by invoking jurisdiction of this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution of India as it amounts to interference with the election process about which there is complete prohibition under Article 243O of the Constitution of India.

4. The objection has been sought to be repelled by the learned counsel for the petitioner by relying upon the principle of law laid down by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in the case of Mohinder Singh Gill & anr v. The Chief Election Commissioner & ors reported in (1978) 1 SCC 405 which has been followed by this Court in many of its decisions including the decision in the case of Poonam w/o Rajesh Pawar v. Returning Officer & ors reported in 2017 (4) Mh.L.J. 85.

5. Now, the law is well settled. If it is seen that the correction of the decision given by the Returning Officer or even the District Judge exercising his power under Rule 15 of the Election Rules, is going to result in furtherance and progression of the election process, it would not amount to any interference in the process and it would only go to facilitate the process of election and, therefore, such correction is possible in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India by the High Court.

6. In the case of Election Commission of India v. Ashok Kumar & ors reported in (2000) 8 SCC 216, the limits of power to be exercised by the High Court while undertaking judicial review of such order have been laid down. The guidelines appearing in paragraph 32 of the said judgment are relevant in this regard. Guideline No. (3), in particular, would be useful for us in the context of the facts involved in the present case. It lays down that the order can be judicially reviewed if it suffers from some malafide action on the part of the authority or is the result of arbitrary exercise of power by the Authority.

7. In the light of what has been laid down by the decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court referred to above, one has to consider the effect of the Returning Officer's order impugned before the learned District Judge.

8. That order rests upon only one reason, the reason of not enclosing form no. 2 to the nomination paper. It is only for this sole reason that the nomination form of the petitioner has been rejected by the Returning Officer. The learned District Judge in appeal has, however, not upheld this reason as is clearly seen from observations made in paragraph 11 of the impugned order. He has recorded a clear finding that the reason given by the Returning Officer for rejection of nomination form or the paper of the petitioner on the ground that photo copy of Annexure-II was submitted and not the original, when the original was already with him, was not justified. After having found so, the learned District Judge, it is further seen, went on to take up scrutiny of the nomination form with a view to accepting or rejecti