THAKORE SHANABHAI GEDALBHAI Vs. STATE ELECTION COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Election is the essence of political democracy. It gives the people right to choose their representatives after a specified interval. Therefore, expeditious holding of elections is absolutely imperative. In order to ensure that the process of election is not impeded by interlocutory judicial interventions, the founding fathers of the Constitution incorporated Art. 329 in Part XV of the Constitution and enacted bar to interference by Courts in electoral matters. That article reads as under:

(2.) When part IX and IX-A were inserted in the Constitution by the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992 and the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act, 1992 and the panchayats and municipalities were declared as institutions of self-government, similar bar was enacted in the form of Articles 243-0 and 243-ZG. These two Articles also read as under:

(3.) The ambit and scope of the bar contained in Art. 329 was considered by a Constitution Bench of Supreme Court in N.P. Ponnuswamy v. Returning Officer, Namakkal Constituency and others, AIR 1952 SC 64. In that case, the appellant was one of the persons, who had filed nomination paper for election to Madras Legislative Assembly from Namakkal Constituency of Salem District. The Returning Officer rejected his nomination paper. The appellant moved the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for quashing the order of the Returning Officer and for issuance of mandamus for inclusion of his name in the list of valid nominations. The High Court dismissed the writ petition on the ground that it did not have the jurisdiction to interfere with the order of the Returning Officer. In appeal, the Supreme Court interpreted the word 'election' appearing in Part XV of the Constitution and held : "the word 'election' has been used in Part XV of the Constitution in the right sense, that is to say, to connote the entire procedure to be gone through to return the candidate to the legislature. The use of the expression