Present: Pereira J.

In the Matter of an Application by John Solomon Fernando
for a Writ of Mandamus on the Government Agent
of the Western Province.

Local Boards Ordinance, 1898 - Nominating candidates before day appointed for election-Ordinance No. 13 of 1898, ss. 10 and 14- Quo warranto-Jurisdiction of Supreme Court,

In the case of elections of members of Local Boards constituted by the Local Boards Ordinance, 1898, it is not open to the Government Agent to require that candidates be " nominated " on a day before the day appointed for the meeting for the election. Section 10 of the Ordinance requires that every candidate should be proposed and seconded at the meeting itself, and that Votes given to any person who has not been so proposed and seconded should not be taken into account, and should be deemed wholly void and ineffective. That, being so, where the Chairman at a meeting held for an election put to the vote the names of candidates who had not been proposed and seconded at the meeting itself, but who had been " naminated " on some day prior thereto in terms of a procedure not warranted by the Ordinance but adopted by the Chairman, and further refused to put to the vote the name of a candidate who was duly proposed and seconded at the meeting. -

Held, that the proceeding was illegal, and the election null and void.

Held, further, that the words " any other cause whatever " in section l4 of the Ordinance meant a cause ejusdem generis with the causes expressly mentioned in the section, namely, " failure " and " neglect, " and that in any case the section did not apply where the Chairman deliberately and in spite of protest acted in contravention of the Ordinance, but that it applied only to cases in which some matter invalidating the election of which the Chairman had no notice or cognizance at the time of the election was brought to his notice thereafter.

Held, further, that under section 46 of the Courts Ordinance the Supreme Court had no power to issue a writ of quo warranto, and that it could only issue a mandate in the nature of any of the writs expressly mentioned in it.

THE facts are set out in the judgment.

Bawa,, K. C. (with him Morgan de Saram), for second, third, and fourth respondents. -This Court has no power to issue a mandamus. A mandamus will only issue where there is no other remedy. Here the Ordinance itself provides a remedy. There is an appeal from the presiding officer's ruling to the Chairman. See section 14.

The words of the section, " neglect or any other cause, " are wide enough to cover any case. The applicant himself sent in a list of objections to the Chairman.

[Pereira J. -Is the Government Agent to revise his own order?]

There is nothing improper in that; the Supreme Court, when sitting in review under the old procedure, was doing almost the same thing.

There is no appeal from the Chairman's ruling. See Regina v. Colins 1, In re the Local Board of Jaffna 2.

H. J. C. Pereira (with him Canekeratne), for applicant. -The election in this case is illegal.

The Chairman has set at nought the provisions of the Ordinance. There is nothing about a nomination meeting in the Ordinance. A mandamus is the proper remedy, as this is merely a " colourable election. See R. v. Cambridge Corporation, 3 10 Halsbury 81. That there is no appeal from the order of the Government Agent was only the argument of counsel in 1 A. C. R. 128.

Section 14 of the Ordinance, whereby the Chairman can revise his order, applies only to cases where the Chairman himself finds that there is an irregularity. In any case, the word. " other " shows that the Chairman can only exercise his authority when the irregularity is of the same kind as " neglect. '"

January 5, 1914., Pereira J. -

I have already made my order in this matter, and, as I intimated to counsel at the close of the argument on the 29th instant, I now deliver my judgment setting forth the reasons fo