Point of Law: Any person aggrieved by the order passed by the revising authority can file his appeal before the District Election Officer (P)-cum-Deputy Commissioner.

JUDGMENT :

Tarlok Singh Chauhan, J.

Aggrieved by the non-inclusion of his name in the Voter List, the petitioner has filed the instant petition for the grant of following substantive reliefs:-

“a) That the respondent may kindly be directed to enroll the name of petitioner into the electoral list with immediate effect”

b) That the petitioner may be given opportunity to file her nomination”.

2. It is well settled proposition of law that inclusion or exclusion of name in the Voter List cannot be termed as an extraordinary circumstance warranting interference of the High Court in exercise of the jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution. However, it is always open to a person whose name is not included in the Voter List to avail the benefit by filing election petition as the authorities constituted have wide powers to cancel, confirm and amend the election and it can also direct to hold fresh election, in case, the election is eventually set aside.

3. No doubt, in extraordinary and exceptional circumstances, the High Court can entertain writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution where the order is ultra vires or nullity and/or ex facie without jurisdiction. The exclusion or inclusion of name in the Voter List cannot be termed as extraordinary circumstance warranting interference by the Court under Article 226 of the Constitution and such question at best are to be decided in election petition.

4. In addition to the above, a specific and time bound remedy is provided to an aggrieved person under Rule 24 of the Himachal Pradesh Panchayati Raj (Elections) Rules, 1994, when a person name is not included in the electoral roll.

5. Rule 24 of the Himachal Pradesh Panchayati Raj (Elections) Rules, 1994, reads as under:-

“24. Inclusion of names in the electoral roll, finally published.- (1) Any person, whose name is not included in the electoral roll shall make an application, in Form-2 (in duplicate), to the District Election Officer (Panchayats) for inclusion of his name in that electoral roll, and such application shall be accompanied by a fee of rupees two to be paid in cash against receipt.

(2) District Election Officer (Panchayats) shall immediately on receipt of application under sub-rule (1) direct that one copy thereof be pasted in some conspicuous place in his office together with a notice inviting objections to such application within a period of four days from the date of such pasting.

(3) The District Election Officer (Panchayats) shall as may be, after the expiry of the period specified in the notice under sub-rule (2), consider the objections, if any, received by him and shall, if satisfied that the applicants entitled to be registered in the electoral roll, direct such name to be included therein within a period of 3 days: Provided that if the applicant whose name is ordered to be included is already registered in the electoral roll of any other constituency of the same Gram Sabha or another Gram Sabha or a Municipality, such a name shall be deleted from that electoral roll:

Provided further that an application under this rule at any time after publication of the election programme under rule 32 shall be made to the District Election Officer (Panchayats) not later than 9 days before the last date fixed for the filing of nomination papers: Provided further that no amendment or transposition or deletion of any entry shall be made on or after the last date for making nomination till the election process is over.

(4) Where an application made under sub-rule (1), is rejected, an appeal shall be within a period of ten days from the date of rejection of the application for the inclusion of names to the State Election Commission, whose decision shall be final.(5) Every appeal under subrule (4) shall be accompanied by a fee of twenty rupees to be paid in cash against receipts.”

6. However, learned counsel for the petitioner would argue that since the provisional electoral rolls were neither published nor notified or kept in th