Important Points:
a) Once the election process is set into motion, this Court would be loath to exercise the writ jurisdiction to interject and interfere with the process. It was submitted that petitioners have alternative remedy after the elections.
b) High Court should not have interfered with the election after the process of election had commenced. Whenever the process of election starts, normally courts should not interfere with the process of election for the simple reason that if the process of election is interfered with by the courts, possibly no election would be completed without the court's order. Very often, for frivolous reasons, candidates or others approach the courts and by virtue of interim orders passed by courts, the election is delayed or cancelled and in such a case the basic purpose of having election having election and getting an elected body to run the administration is frustrated
c) Court must be very circumspect and act with caution while entertaining any election dispute though not hit by the bar of Article 329(b) but brought to it during the pendency of election proceedings.

N.V ANJARIA, J.

All the seven captioned petitions involve similar and interactive facts and identical issue. Therefore, they were heard together and are being disposed of by this common order.

2. The first captioned petition is filed by Mehsana Taluka Co-operative Purchase and Sale Union Limited. In the second Special Civil Application No. 17977 of 2016, the petitioner is Somnath Khet Pedash Processing and Vechan Sahakari Mandli Limited. Petitioner of Special Civil Application No. 17978 of 2016 is Mehsana Jilla Khedut Sinchai and Krushi Utpadan Karnar Sangh Limited, whereas the petitioner of Special Civil Application No. 18108 of 2016 is Dhandhusan Bij Utpadakoni Rupantar and Vechan Karnari Sahakari Mandli. All the petitioner cooperative societies have prayed for setting aside of order dated 10th October, 2016 passed by the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC), Mehsana through its Administrator, and another order dated 14th October, 2016 which is an order passed by the authorized officer-the third respondent herein.

2.1 The order dated 10th October, 2016 passed by the fourth respondent is an order whereunder the fourth respondent has cancelled the trader's licence of the petitioner society granted for the year 2016-2017 in exercise of powers under Section 27 read with Section 59 of the Agriculture Produce Market Act, 1963. The second order dated 14th October, 2016 impugned is the order whereby the authorized officer consequentially deleted names of the members of the Managing Committee of the petitioner societies. Names of the 16 members came to be deleted by the authorised officer as far as the first petitioner Mandli is concerned; 10 names were deleted as per the order impugned in the second Special Civil Application No. 17977 of 2016, 13 members were deleted from the list of voters as per the impugned order in the third petition, whereas the impugned order in Special Civil Application No. 18108 of 2016 provided to delete 09 members as voters.

3. While the facts run parallel in each of the four petitions, the delineation of facts herein is with reference to the first captioned petition. Highlighting the background facts, it was stated that previously, there was one Agriculture Market Committee, Mehsana which was bifurcated by way of notification 06th January, 2014 into APMC, Mehsana and APMC, Jotina. The bifurcation notification was challenged in Special Civil Application No. 564 of 2014 and the same came to be upheld as the petition was dismissed on 11th August, 2016. The administrator took over the charge on the same date. The Letters Patent Appeal was preferred against the aforesaid order dated 11th August, 2016, which appeal came to be disposed on 26th August, 2016; on the same date, the election programme was notified.

3.1 On 23rd September, 2016, the Administrator of the APMC, Mehsana issued notice to the petitioner calling for certain information in relation to the general licence held by the petitioner, further specifying that failure on part of the petitioner may lead to take necessary action in exercise of powers under Section 27 of the Gujarat Agriculture Produce Market Act, 1963. On 03rd October, 2016, the petitioner replied. On 05th October, 2016, objections to the inclusion of the name of petitioner Mandli in the list of voters were raised by two persons on various grounds. In view of the objections raised, the authorized officer issued notice to the petitioner on the very day. In the preliminary list of voters, stated learned counsel for the petitioner, the name of the petitioner figured.

3.2 The above exercise resulted into the impugned orders, the one whereunder the licence of the petitioner society was ordered to be cancelled by the fourth respondent, whereas the other order was passed by the authorized officer-the third respondent deleting the name of the members of the petitioner society from the voters' list.

3.3 The elections to the APMC are held through different constituencies such as trader