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DE SILVA G.E. v. ATTORNEY GENERAL et al.
NLR50V481
[IN THE PRIVY COUNCIL]
1919 Present : Lord
Simonds, Lord du Parcq and Lord Normand
G. E. DE SILVA,
Petitioner, and ATTORNEY-GENERAL et al.,
Respondents
APPLICATION FOR SPECIAL LEAVE TO APPEAL TO THE
PRIVY COUNCIL
Election Petitions Nos. 4 and 5 of 1947
Privy
Council-Election petition-Special leave to appeal-Determination of Election
Court is final-No appeal to Privy Council-Parliamentary Elections Order in
Council, 1946-Sections 75, 81 and 82.
No appeal will be entertained by the Privy Council from an order
of an Election Judge under Section 81 of the Parliamentary (Elections) Order in
Council, 1946.
APPLICATION for special leave to appeal to the Privy
Council from an order of the Election Judge in Election Petitions Nos. 4 and 5
of 1947. The order of the Election Judge is reported in (1948) 49 N. L. R.
169.
Sir Valentine Holmes, K.C., with
R. K. Handoo, for the petitioner.
Frank Grahan for the Attorney
General.
April 11, 1949. Delivered by LORD SIMONDS-
Their Lordships have humbly advised His Majesty that
in their opinion this petition for special leave to appeal should be refused
with costs. These are their reasons.
The petitioner George Edmund de Silva prays for
special leave to appeal from a determination of Windham J., a Judge of the
Supreme Court of the Island of Ceylon acting as Election Judge under the
provisions of the Order in Council hereafter mentioned, whereby the election of
the petitioner as member of the House of Representatives for the Kandy
Electoral District was declared to be void for certain reasons into which it is
unnecessary to enter. When their Lordships had partially considered the case
011 its merits, it appeared that a question of jurisdiction arose upon which
they desired the assistance of Counsel for the Attorney-General of Ceylon.
Having now heard full argument upon the question
they are satisfied that the matter in
dispute is one in which the Prerogative right to entertain an appeal does not
exist and that the petition must be refused accordingly.
By an Order in Council called the Ceylon
(Parliamentary Elections) Order in Council, 1946, which was made under the
authority of the Ceylon (Constitution) Order in Council, 1946, provision was
made for the election of' members' to serve in the House of Representatives for
Ceylon. The said Order in Council after making all the usual and appropriate
provisions in regard to qualification of electors and the holding of elections
and other relevant matters and having defined corrupt practices and prescribed
that every person who should be guilty of a corrupt practice should on
conviction be liable to certain penalties, by s. 76 enacted that the election
of a candidate as a member should be avoided by his conviction for any corrupt
or illegal practice, and by s. 77 that the election of a candidate as a member
should be declared to be void on an election petition on any of a number of
grounds therein stated which might be proved to the Satisfaction of the
election judge. Part V of the Order deals with Election Petitions. By section
75 (1) it is provided that every
