MODI, J.—By this writ application under Art. 226 of the Constitution, the petitioners who are voters in the municipality of the town of Mukandgarh, District Jhunjhunu, seek to challenge the general election last held for this municipality on the 23rd December, 1958, under the Rajasthan Town Municipalities Act, 1951, (Act No. XXIII of 1951) (hereinafter called the Act).

2. It is common ground that the petitioners were among the candidates who offered their candidature for the impugned election. Respondents Nos. 2 to 9 are members of this municipal board having been declared successful at this election. Respondent No. 1 is the Returning Officer, who conducted the election, while respondent No. 10 is the municipal board Mukandgarh. The petitioners have taken up a large number of grounds in their writ application which according to them vitiated this election; but it is necessary to mention only those which were debated at the bar of this Court, the rest having been given up. These grounds may be summarised as follows: First, the Returning Officer acted illegally in entrusting the preparation of the voters list to the municipal board and in doing so he contravened rule 6 of the Rajasthan Town Municipal Election Rules, 1951 (hereinafter called the Rules). Secondly, the voters list was not published in accordance with rule 7(1) of the Rules and further it was also not published after its finalisation in accordance with rule 11(3) read with rule 7(1). A third ground of attack was also raised by an application for amendment dated the nth April, 1960, and this was that neither the Government of Rajasthan nor the Collector who had authority delegated to him in this connection had issued any notification under sec. 10 of the Act determining the total number of members of this municipal board or whether this board would consist of wholly elected or partly elected and partly nominated members and in the latter event what was to be the proportion of the members to be nominated to those elected, and, lastly, whether the election shall be on a single constituency basis or otherwise. The contention was that the failure of the Government or the Collector to issue such a notification affected the very foundation of the election, and, therefore, it should be declared to be void.

3. A reply was filed on behalf of the municipal board before respondents Nos. 2 to 9 took office. In this reply it was admitted that the Returning Officer had asked the municipal board to prepare the list of voters and so it had prepared the same. As for the publication of the said list it was submitted that the list was placed in the municipal office "under the custody of office staff with instructions to show it to any body who wants it to see during office hours. No such list was published by affixing it on the notice board of municipal office or at any other place in municipal office or municipal area as there were no such instructions of the Returning Officer." It was further submitted in this connection that in accordance with the instructions received from the Returning Officer on the 3rd September, 1958, this list was also sent to the public library situate within this municipality and that it was for the librarian thereof to say how he had kept the list for inspection. According to the municipal board, the same procedure was followed in the publication of the electoral roll after it was finalised. We have an affidavit on the record filed by Murlidhar Sharma who was working as librarian of the library at the relevant time. According to this affidavit, the list of voters had been received by him on the 3rd August, 1958, through a messenger of the municipal board and he put it in an almirah of the library under lock and key thinking that "the said list was important and valuable document." He was avowedly under the impression that this was to be taken out and given for reading as and when any person demanded and as no one made such a demand, it was not shown to any bo

Click Here to Read the rest of this document