Rajasthan High Court
Wanchco, C.J. and Bapna, J.
Nisar Ahmad - Appellant
Versus
Addl. Commissioner, Jodhpur - Respondents
D.B. Civil Misc. Writ Application No. 38 of 1951
Decided On : January 10, 1952
The City Municipal Appeals (Regulation) Act only provides for forum for municipal appeals in cases in which orders have been passed by a municipal authority. The Officer-in-charge of Municipal Elections is not a municipal authority within the meaning of this Act.
One N stood as a candidate for elections to the Municipality of Jodhpur. H was a rival candidate for the same ward and he raised an objection to N*s nomination. The objection was rejected by the Officer-in-charge Elections and Ns nomination was accepted. Thereupon H made an appeal against the order accepting Ns nomination, to the Addl. Commissioner who accepted the appeal and rejected the nomination paper of N. Thereupon N made an application for review before the Addl. Commissioner on the ground that he had no jurisdiction to interfere with the order of Officer-in charge Elections but it was rejected. Thereupon N prefer-red a revision before the Minister-in-charge of Local Self Govt. who set aside the order of Addl. Commissioner and restored the order of the Officer-in-charge Elections. Thereafter H filed a review application. In the meantime there had been a change in the Ministry and the new Minister-in-charge allowed the review and set aside the order of the former Minister. Hence this application under Art. 226.
Held that the fact that the applicant had acquiesced in the juris-diction did not debar him from coming to the High Court. In the first place he had never willingly submitted to the jurisdiction of Addl. Commissioner or the Minister. Secondly the Addl. Commissioner* or the Minister had not the semb-lance of a jurisdiction to interfere with the discretion of the Officer-in charge Elections.
Held further that ordinarily the High Court may not grant a writ where the order was obviously null and void but in the present case the unauthorised persons who have usurped the jurisdiction are the Addl. Commissioner and a Minister. In such cases it was possible for the Officer-in-charge of Elections to think that he was bound by the orders of the superior authorities. Consequently, an order under Art. 226 should not be refused.
Lastly, though the petitioner had alternative remedy, namely, he could file an election petition, the circumstances of the case are such that it would not be right to let the petitioner fight the orders of persons who had no business to interfere with the order of the Officer-in-charge who had decided in his favour.
2. Thereafter Haqiquatullah made an appeal against the order accepting the applicants nomination to the Additional Commissioner who accepted the appeal on the 7th of March 1951 and held that the nomination of the petitioner was bad and rejected his nomination paper. The applicant made an application for review before the Additional Commissioner on the ground that he had no jurisdiction to interfere with the order of the Officer-in-charge of Elections with respect to nominations but the review application was rejected. Thereafter the applicant preferred a revision before the Minister-in-charge of Local Self Government in which he again raised the point of jurisdiction. The then Minister set aside the order of the Additional Commissioner and restored the order of the Officer-in-charge Elections. Thereafter Haqiquatullah filed a review application. In the meantime, there had been a change in the Ministry and the Minister allowed the review application and set aside the order of the former Minister and upheld the order of the Additional Commissioner rejecting the nomination paper of the applicant. Thereupon the present application was made in this court under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India. The main contention of the applicant here is that the order of the Officer-in-charge Elections accepting his nomination paper could not be questioned in any manner except by an election petition and therefore, this court should set aside the order of the Additional Commissioner and the Minister-in-charge.
3. The application has been opposed by the State of Rajasthan as well as by Haqiquatullah. It is not necessary to set out the reply of the State in detail because that reply is a justification of the unjustifiable. Learned counsel appearing for the State has admitted that there is no provision in the Jodhpur Municipal Act for filing an appeal against an order under sec. 27 by which the Officer-in-charge of Elections accepts the nomination paper of a candidate and rejects the objections filed against it. The position is so clear that the learned counsel could not do otherwise. In this view of the matter, we do not think it necessary to examine in detail the various orders passed by the Additional Commissioner and the two Ministers. It is enough to say that though the learned Additional Commissioner tried to show in the order which he passed on the review application how he had jurisdiction, he contended himself by showing that he had jurisdiction against an order passed under sec. 21A, which no one ever disputed, and said nothing about his jurisdiction to set aside an order under sec. 27, accepting a nomination and rejecting objections to it, which had been done by his first order of the 7th of March. We agree with the view taken by the first Minister in his order dated 24th of April. It is only necessary to refer to Rajasthan City Municipal Appeals (Regulation) Act (Act No. III of 1950) in this connection to clear any mis-apprehension that the order under sec. 27 was open to appeal or revision under that Act. It is enough to say that this Act mainly provides for forum for Municipal appeals. Sec. 3 of the Act says that wherever any Municipal law provides for a Municipal appeal, the appeal shall lie to the Commissioner. Therefore, this Act did not create any right of appeal but merely
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