The appointment of members does not constitute the taluk board, and it is the Local Boards Act and the notifications of the Government that constitute a taluk board.

Spencer, J.

1. This Civil Revision Petition is connected with an order made by the Subordinate Judge at Negapatam in reference to an election to the Taluk Board of Negapatam under the powers possessed by him as an enquiring authority under the rules in Appendix D to the Madras Local Boards Act.

2. An objection has been taken that we have no power to evise the order of the Subordinate Judge, which by Rule 12, Clause 3, of the rules for the conduct of inquiries and the decision of disputes relating to elections is declared to be final, after he has decided whether an election is void for non-compliance with the provisions of the Act or the rules made thereunder. This question has been fully considered by a Bench of this Court, on which my learned brother was one of the Judges, when it was decided that the High Court could revise an order of a Subordinate Judge on an election petition, if he had acted with material irregularity or illegality (see Ramaswami Goundan v. Muthu Velappa Goundan (1922) 44 M.L.J. 1. I agree with that decision in preference to the decision of Devadoss, J. sitting as a single Judge in Daiva-nayagam Pillai v. Mohideen Rowther (1922) 16 L.W. 827 and I do not think that anything useful can be added to the reasons given therein. As to the merits of this petition, it appears that originally there was one Taluk Board at Negapatam, which comprised the revenue taluks of Negapatam and Nannilam. When the revised Local Boards Act of 1920 came into force, the Government decided to bifurcate the existing taluk board and to provide a taluk board for each revenue taluk under Section 6 of the Act, which requires that there shall be a taluk board constituted for each taluk, the Government having the power under Section 4 to declare by notification any part of a district to be a taluk. In order to effect this bifurcation, the necessary notifications were published in the Fort St. George Gazette. In the Gazette of the 3rd January, 1922, the Government fixed under Rule 9 of schedule 10 of the Act the 1st of April, 1922 as the date for the first reconstituted taluk boards in the Tanjore district to come into existence. Rule 9 of Schedule 10 requires that the date fixed by notification should be not later than one year from the commencement of this Act, power being given to extend the period by six months for special reasons. The Act came into force on the 4th January, 1921 and the date fixed for the taluk board coming into existence was the 1st April, 1922. Thus this notification was quite in order.

3. Next by notification, No. 581, published in the Fort St. George Gazette of the 15th August, 1922, the Government acting under the powers, already referred to, of declaring by notification any part of a district to be a taluk and cancelling notifications previously issued, notified that the notification constituting the existing local fund taluk should be cancelled with effect from the 15th of August and that from that date the taluks of Negapatam and Nannilam should be taluks for the purpose of the Act, and that the properties vested in the old taluk board of Negapatam should vest in the new taluk boards of Negapatam and Nannilam, so far as they were situate within their respective jurisdictions.

4. Under Section 10 of Act XIV of 1920 the District Board is empowered to fix the total number of the members of the taluk boards within its jurisdiction subject to the maximum of 24 and the minimum of 12 laid down in Section 7. In the present case, the District Board of Tanjore resolved that the number of members of the Negapatam taluk board should be twenty. Under the extraordinary powers vested in Government by Section 240 of appointing all the members of new taluk boards for a period not exceeding one year from their constitution, the Government by notification, No. 577 of the 15th August, 1922 appointed 19 gentlemen to be members of the taluk board of Negapatam (N.B. A twentieth member was not appointed till November 21st, 1922