IMPORTANT POINT
summary inquiry involves undertaking of the actual factual inquiry but such inquiry would be of minimum nature to be done in non-elaborate way.

N.V. Anjaria, J.

1. Would it be or not inquiry 'summary' in nature or not to inquire and ascertain whether the election was held or not, when only elected members were to be the eligible voters to be included in the list of voters, is the question.

2. This is what exactly done by the fourth respondent-the Authorized Officer in passing the impugned order dated 03rd May, 2016 directing thereby to exclude the names of 11 persons from the list of voters, finding that the persons whose names were sent as members of Managing Committee of the petitioner Society were not the elected members, but ad hoc appointees. The Authorized Officer found that election was not held and the persons were not elected members. It is this decision and approach as to the nature of inquiry, is brought under judicial scanner in this petition. The fourth respondent in excluding the names of persons, accepted the objection raised by the fifth respondent herein.

3. The petitioner is a primary agricultural credit cooperative society registered under the Cooperative Societies Act, 1961, dispensing agricultural credit in the market area of Agriculture Produce Market Committee, Kherealu (APMC, Kheralu). Elections to the APMC, Kheralu were declared by respondent No. 2-Director of Agriculture Marketing and Rural Finance on 22nd March, 2016 and the programme was published on 29th March, 2016.

3.1 As per the time-table of election announced thereunder under Section 10(2) of the Agriculture Produce Markets Committee Act, the election programme was published on 29th March, 2016, list of voters was prepared as per the programme and the preliminary list of voters was published on 13th April, 2016, objections to the preliminary list of voters were invited on 27th April, 2016 to be submitted within 14 days, revised list of voters after consideration of objections was published on 03rd May, 2016, further objections to the revised list could be submitted upto 10th May, 2016. Filing of nominations started from 13th June, 2016 and scrutiny is to take place on 14th June, 2016. The final list of voters is fixed to be published on 17th June, 2016 and the date of voting would be 28th June, 2016.

3.2 It appears that in the preliminary list of voters published on 13th April, 2016 the authorized officer-the fourth respondent included the names of 11 persons. In respect of the said inclusion, the fifth private respondent raised objections, namely that the Managing Committee of the society was not formed as per the by-laws, that the resolution was passed without issuing agenda and nobody knew about the constitution of the Managing Committee, that the meeting of the Managing Committee was not held since last two years; in nutshell it was the objection that the members whose names were mentioned by the society as the members of the Managing Committee were not the elected persons and Managing Committee shown to have been formed without election.

3.3 A brief reference to the applicable statutory provisions would be relevant. The Gujarat Agricultural Produce Markets Act, 1963 in its Chapter III contains provisions relating to declaration of market area, constitution of markets and establishment of market committees, whereas section 10(1) under Chapter IV provides for incorporation of market committee, which is deemed to be a local authority as per sub-section (2) of Section 10. Section 11 deals with the constitution of market committee and sub-section (1) thereof says that every market committee shall consist of the members of the categories mentioned in sub-clauses (i), (ii) and (iii). These categories are also identified as agriculturist constituency, traders' constituency and constituency of general license holders. The members in these categories would be eligible voters in the Market Committee elections. Sub-section (4) of Section 11provides that the term of office of the market committee shall be four years, extendable for further one year in aggregate. Section 15 is about fillin