Hon’ble Pankaj Mithal, J.—“Politics becomes dirty when politicians behave immorally”.

—His Holiness The Dalia Lama.

Indian democracy is considered to be the largest in the world and it is flourishing for the last 60 years. Nonetheless, it is not a very healthy democracy, though many may not agree. Lack of morality of the people connected with public life is the cause for the present litigation.

This appeal and the writ petition were tagged together by an earlier order of the Court and as such came-up for hearing before me in the weekly cause list.

The appeal is being treated to be the leading case with the consent of the parties.

Facts :

2. The facts leading to this litigation in nutshell may be summarised as under :

In the Zila Panchayat, Varanasi there are 39 members including the appellant Anil Kumar and the respondent Smt. Suchita Patel, who were declared elected as members on 25.10.2005 from Bada Gaon 4 and Kashi Vidhyapeeth 5 areas respectively.

The elections for the post of Adhyaksha/President of the Zila Panchayat, Varanasi were notified by the Election Officer/District Magistrate, Varanasi on 20.12.2005 which notification was published in the daily newspaper dated