Dave, J.—This is a writ petition by Prithviraj; who is a resident of Sujangarh and who is one of the qualified voters for purposes of election to the Sujangarh Municipality.

2. It is common ground between the parties that non-petitioner No. 2, Shri Radha Vallabh Chowdari, Sub-divisional Magistrate, Ratangarh, was appointed as Returning Officer for conducting election of the. Sujangarh Municipality. He issued a notice Ex.1 dated 9th December, 1958, whereby all concerned were informed that the last date for filing nomination papers was 28th March, 1959, and that the polling would take place on the 13th April, 1959.

3. The petitioners case is that he wanted to contest the election and in order to file his nomination paper, he went to Ratangarh on 28th March, 1959, because the Returning Officer used to reside there and he had not fixed any place for filing the nomination papers. When he reached Ratangarh, the Returning Officer was not available there and so he could not file his nomination paper on the appointed date. Thereafter, he applied to the President, Municipal Board, Sujangarh for a copy of the electoral roll (vide Ex. 3), but he was informed by the President, Municipal Board on the same date (vide Ex. 4) that the copy of the electoral roll was not available there. It is alleged by him that according to the notice given by the Returning Officer dated 5th March, 1959, the amended electoral roll ought to have been published on 9th March, 1959, but it was apparent from the reply of the Municipal President (vide Ex.4) that the electoral roll was not available even upto 8th April, 1959. The third allegation made by the petitioner is that the portion shown in red colour in the plan attached Ex. 5 was outside the area of Sujangarh Municipality, that the Government of Rajasthan had wrongly included that portion in the wards constituted by gazette notification dated 26th February, 1955. It is stated by the petitioner that he had presented an application to the President, Municipal Board on 8th April, 1959 to supply him information about the territorial limits of the Sujangarh Municipality and that the reply received by him in response to his application is Ex. 7. It is contended by him that the portion marked red in the plan Ex.5 is outside the limits shown in Ex. 7 and, thus, the electoral lists, if any, prepared by the Returning Officer were useless inasmuch as they included the names of persons, who were not residing in the municipal limits and who had, therefore, no right to vote at the election.

4. It may be mentioned here that the writ application was presented on the 11th of April, 1959 and it was prayed that a writ of prohibition be issued to the Returning Officer and he should be directed not to hold election of Sujangarh Municipality on 13th April, 1959. In the alternative, it was prayed that a writ of quo warranto or any other writ or direction be issued declaring the whole election void, in case the election was held before the disposal of his petition.

5. A joint reply has been filed by non-petitioner Nos. 1 and 2. Non-petitioner No. 3 Swami Ram Tirath was not impleaded as a party by the petitioner, but it was requested by the former that he should be permitted to contest the writ application as an intervener, because he was a candidate at the said election; he hoped to be elected and his interests would suffer in case the Writ application was allowed. It was obvious that the intervener was going to be directly affected by the decision of the writ application and, therefore, he was allowed to file his reply. He has accordingly filed his separate reply to the application. All the non-petitioners have contested the writ applications and alleged that the facts stated by the petitioner are not correct. According to the non-petitioners, it was doubtful if the petitioner went to Ratangarh on 28th March 1959 and that it was at all not necessary for him to go to that place. It is pointed out that the petitioner did not submit any

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