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 furthe