Rajasthan High Court
Bhargava, J.
Abdul Aziz - Appellant
Versus
Manmath Kumar - Respondents
S.B. Civil Misc. Elec. Appeal No. 26 of 1967
Decided On : January 31, 1959
2. The respondent had filed his nomination paper for election to Ward No. 10 of the Municipal Board, Sikar. At the time of scrutiny of the nomination paper on 7-5-1966, objection was raised that the respondent was disqualified from being chosen as a member of the Board because he was employed as legal practitioner against the Board the Returning Officer accepted the objection and rejected the nomi-nation paper of the respondent. Thereupon the respondent filed an election petition challenging the election of the appellant on several grounds including that of illegal rejection of his nomination paper by the Returning Officer. The Election Tribunal tried the election petition on several issues, but for the purpose of this appeal the decision of the Tribunal on issue No. 1 is only relevant. Issue No. 1 is as follows :
"Whether the nomination of the applicant was illegally rejected by the Return ing Officer and if so, what is its effect?"
Sec. 24 of the Act lays down that—
"Subject to the provisions contained in sec 9 and 26, a person shall not be qualified to be chosen to fill a seat on a Board unless—
(a)..................................................
(b) in the case of any other seat, he is an elector for any ward in the Municipality."
Sec. 26 deals with the general disqualifications for members and says that—
"A person, notwithstanding that he is otherwise qualified shall be disqualified for being chosen as a member of a Board.
(xiii) who is employed as a paid legal practitioner on behalf of such Board or accepts employment as legal practitioner against such Board during the term for which he has been elected."
3. The Tribunal on the interpretation of clause (xiii) to sec. 26 has come to the conclusion that the respondent was not disqualified for being chosen as a member of the Board. Being of that view the Tribunal accepted the election petition and set aside the election of the appellant to the Sikar Municipal Board from Ward No. 10.
4. Being aggrieved by that decision the appellant has come in appeal before the Court and it has been contended on his behalf that clause (xiii) is ranged under sec. 26 which speaks of disqualifications for being chosen as a member of the Board and that being so the second part of clause (xiii) should also be regarded as a dis-qualification for being chosen as a member of the Board. He means to say that even a person who employed as a legal practitioner against the Board on the date of the filing of nomination paper, would be disqualified for being chosen as a member. Learned counsel wants the Court to read the second part of clause (xiii) as "or accepts employment as a legal practitioner against such Board for the period to which he is to be elected," so as to avoid inconsistency or repugnancy with in the section.
5. No doubt it is the duty of the court to try and harmonise the various provisions in an enactment, but it is not permissible to read words in a statute which are not there as it would be obviously trespassing into the legislative field. As stated by the Privy Council in Robert Wigram Crawford vs. Richard Spooner (1); we cannot fish out what possibly have been the intention of the Legislature; we cannot aid the Legislatures defective phrasing of the Statute ; we cannot add, and mend, and by construction, make up deficiencies which are left there. On the other hand the primary rule of construction is that the intention of the legislature mus
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