D. Falshow, J. - (1.) THIS is an appeal filed under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent by Shrimati Budhan against the order of a Single Judge dismissing her petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution'.
(2.) THE facts are that in December, 1963 the election of the Gram Panchayat took place in the village of Tungbala and the Appellant was one of eleven candidates who stood for the office of Panch. There we're two candidates for the office of Sarpanch, a man named Swarnjit Singh and a woman, the contesting Respondent, Shrimati Swinder Kaur. In the contest for the Sarpanchship Swarnjit Singh obtained 601 votes as against 211 given in favour of Swinder Kaur and Swarnjit Singh was accordingly elected. In the voting for Panchships the Appellant only obtained either 14 or 15 votes (the figures are given differently in the written statements of the official Respondents and Shrimati Swinder Kaur) and she was not elected. She was, however, co -opted by the Panchayat under the provisions of the proviso to Section 6(1) of the Punjab Gram Panchayat Act. Section 6(1) reads: Every Sabha shall, in the prescribed manner, elect from amongst its members a Chairman of the Sabha and an executive committee consisting of such number of persons not being less than five or more than nine including the Sarpanch of the Executive Committee as the Government may determine taking into account the population of the Sabha area; Provided that if no woman is elected as a Panch of any Sabha, the woman candidate securing the highest number of votes amongst the women candidates in that election shall be co -opted by the Panchayat as a Panch of that Sabha and where no such woman candidate is available, the prescribed authority shall co -opt as such Panch a woman member of the Sabha who is qualified to be elected as a Panch. The Government Department concerned, however, took the view that in accordance with the law Shrimati Swinder Kaur ought to have been the woman selected for co -option as a Panch and ordered accordingly, with the result that Shrimati Budhan filed the writ petition in this Court in order to prevent these instructions from being carried out. The main basis of the petition was the contention that in reality the election of the Panchayat comprised not one, but two separate elections, one for the office of Sarpanch and one fur the offices of Panches, and that, therefore, since Shrimati Swinder Kaur had only stood as a candidate for the office of Sarpanch, she was not within the meaning of the words of the proviso 'the woman candidate securing the highest number of votes amongst the women candidates in that election', this distinction being held by Shrimati Budhan, who was the only woman candidate for the office of Panch and who, therefore, with her 14 or 15 votes, secured the highest number of votes in the election.
(3.) THE learned Single Judge rejected this contention and dismissed the writ petition on the strength of the decision of Dua, J. and himself in Civil Writ No. 1103 of 1964, Shrimati Hargobind Kaur v. The State of Punjab and Ors. decided on the 21st of September, 1964. In that case the Petitioner had stood as a candidate for the office of Sarpanch in her village, but was defeated by a male candidate by a comparatively narrow margin, 499 against 442. There was apparently no other woman candidate in the election even for the office of Panch, and the Panchayat, mala fide according to the Petitioner, had proceeded to co -opt a woman who had not stood for election at all. The argument was raised in that case that the election for the office of Sarpanch was separate from that of the election of the general body of Panches and that, therefore, in spite of the considerable number of votes secured by the Petitioner, she was not auotmatically entitled to be co -opted under the proviso to Section 6(1). The learned Judges after examining the relevant provisions of the law and particularly taking into account the definition of 'Panch' in Rule 3(h)(i) of the Gram Panchayat Election Rules to the effect that 'Panch' means a member of Gram Panchayat, or an Adalti Panchayat, elected or appointed under this Act and includes a Sarpanch, rejected the contention and held that there was only one election for Gram Panchayat and that the words 'the woman candidate securing the highest number of votes amongst the women candidates in that election' would apply to a woman who had stood as a candidate for the office of Sarpanch. They also held that the Petitioner's exclusion by the Panchayat was manifestly mala fide and quashed the co -option of the contesting individual Respondent.;