- (1.) A tricky issue of statutory construction, beset with semantic ambiguity and pervasive possibility, and a prickly provision which if interpreted literally leads to absurdity and if construed liberally, leads to rationality, confront the court in these dual appeals by special leave spinning around the eligibility for candidature of an employee under the Life Insurance Corporation and the declaration of his rival, 1st respondent, as duly returned in a City Corporation election. A tremendous trifle in one sense, since almost the whole term has run out. And yet, divergent decisions of Division Benches of Madras and Calcutta and a recent unanimous ruling of a Bench of five judges of Punjab and Haryana together with the Bombay High Court's decision under appeal have made the precedential erudition sufficiently conflicting for this Court to intervene and declare the law, guided by the legislative text but informed by the imperatives of our constitutional order. The sister appeal filed by the respondent relates to that part of the judgment of the High Court which reverses the declaration granted by the trial judge that he be deemed the returned candidate.
(2.) This little preface leads us on a brief narration of the admitted facts. The appellant (in C. A. 2406 of 1977) was a candidate for election to the Corporation of the City of Nagpur from Ward 34 and his nearest rival was the 1st respondent, although there were other candidates also. Judged by the plurality of votes, the appellant secured a large lead over his opponents and was declared elected. The end of the poll process is often the beginning of the forensic process at the instance of the defeated candidates with its protracted trial and appeals upon appeals, thus making elections doubly expensive and terribly traumatic. The habit of accepting defeat with grace, save in gross cases, is a sign of country's democratic maturity. Anyway, in the present case, when the appellant was declared the returned candidate the respondent challenged the verdict in court on a simple legal ground of ineligibility of the former who was, during the election, a development officer under the Life Insurance Corporation (for short, the LIC). The lethal legal infirmity, pressed with success, by the respondent was that under Regulation 25 of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (Staff) Regulations, 1960 (briefly, the Regulations) framed by the LIC, all its employees were under an embargo on taking part in municipal elections, save with the permission of the Chairman. Therefore, the appellant who was such an employee and had not sought or got the Chairman's permission laboured under a legal ineligibility as contemplated in Section 15 (g) of the City of Nagpur Corporation Act, 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). Both the Courts below shot down the poll verdict with this statutory projectile and the aggrieved appellant urges before us the futility of this invalidatory argument. 2-A. Section 15 (g) is seemingly simple and reads : 15. No person shall be eligible for election as a Councillor if he- xx xx xx xx (g) is under the provisions of any law for the time being in force, ineligible to be a member of any local authority; So, the search is for any provision of law rendering the returned candidate ineligible to be a member. The fatal discovery of ineligibility made by the respondent consists in the incontestable fact that the appellant was at the relevant time an LIC employee bound by the Regulations, which have the force of Law, having been framed under Section 49 of the LIC Act, 1956. The concerned clause is Regulation 25 (4) which reads thus : "25 (4) No employee shall canvass or otherwise interfere or use his influence in connection with or take part in an election to any legislature or local authority. Provided that - xx xx xx xx (iii) the Chairman may permit an employee to offer himself as a candidate for election to a local authority and the employee so permitted shall not be deemed to have contravened the provisions of this regulation.
(3.) A complementary regulation arming the Management with power to take action for breach of this ban is found in Regulation 39 which states. 39. (1). Without prejudice to the provisions of other regulations, any one or more of the following penalties for good and sufficient reasons, and as hereinafter provided, be imposed by the disciplinary authority specified in Schedule on an employee who commits a breach of regulations of the Corporation, or......";