Rejection of nominations should be based on substantial and material defects, and a pragmatic and commonsense view should be taken. Only defects that go to the root of the matter should entail rejection of nominations.

It is unfortunate that despite the authoritative pronouncement of this court in Damodaran v. Joint Registrar. 1989(1) KLT 858. Anthrayose v. Senior Inspector of Co-operative Societies. 1992(2) KLT 489. Abraham v. Returning Officer. 1993(1) KLT 548. Ravi v. Kottayam Co-operative Urban Bank. 1993 (1) KLT 644 and Pankajaksha Panicker v. Venugopalan Nair. 1993(2) KLT 641. Returning Officers at elections to co-operative societies continue to reject nominations without any rhyme or reason. leading to proliferation of unnecessary avoidable litigation. The case on hand is one in point. I think it will be advantageous and fruitful if the Registrar of Co-operative Societies educates the Returning Officers about the recent decisions on the point as to the circumstances in which alone a nomination for election to the managing committee of a co-operative society may be rejected.

2. Briefly the facts. Elections to the managing committee of the Thiruvananthapuram Dairy Employees Sahakarana Sangham Ltd. (the society for short). of which the petitioners are members. is proposed to be held on June 27.1994. Thirty two nominations were filed. including those of the nine petitioners of which twenty three were rejected for one reason or other as mentioned in para. 12 of the counter affidavit of the third respondent. Returning Officer. Since we are concerned only with the case of the petitioners. suffice it to say that the nominations submitted by all of them were found defective for not containing the name of the society in the affidavit filed in support of the nominations. There were certain added grounds in the case of the petitioners 5 and 9 the column for signature and date in the attestation form of the affidavit being left blank in the case of the fifth petitioner; and the date of election being not filled up in the affidavit of the 9m petitioner. In all other respects. the nominations were in order. but they were nevertheless rejected for the aforesaid defects. The petitioners are challenging the rejection of the nominations in this petition under Art.226 of the Constitution on the basis of the decisions mentioned earlier.

3. The learned Government Pleader Sri. D. Somasundaram. with characteristic ability. gallantly defended the rejection on the merits. besides questioning the right of the petitioners to approach this court under Art.226 to have their nominations accepted. when they have an effective post-election remedy of challenging the election itself under S.69 of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act. 1969.

4. I shall deal with the merits first. but before doing so. I may mention that a cue to the grounds on which a nomination may be rejected is afforded by the proviso to R.35(3)(e)(ii) of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Rules (the rules ) which bars a rejection if the identity of the candidate or proposer or seconder is established beyond reasonable doubt. though that is not exhaustive. I shall extract the proviso: -

"'Provided that the nomination of a candidate shall not be rejected merely on the ground of an incorrect description of his name or of the name of his proposer or seconder or of any other particulars relating to the candidate or his proposer or seconder as entered in the list of members referred to in clause (b) if the identity of the candidate or proposer or seconder as the case may be is established beyond reasonable doubt".

What are the normal requirements of a valid nomination? The following should be evident from the nomination paper:

(a) the name of the society;

(b) the identity of the candidate. the proposer and the seconder as established by their description with reference to name. address and membership number - the last is very important as there may be more than one member with the same name as in the case of petitioners 5 and 9 in this writ petition.

(c) the genuineness of the proposal or seconding established by the proposer and the seconder appending their signature to the nomination paper; and

(d) dec