- (1.) This is a petition for quashing the order of respondent No. 3, Deputy Registrar (Industrial) Co-operative Societies, Haryana and Returning Officer for the election of Board of Directors, Haryana Agricultural Federation, dated nil (Annexure P. 3), whereby the nomination paper of the petitioner was rejected in the following words :- "Shri Ved Singh appeared in person and submitted on oath that he was let to sign on the nomination papers of Shri Dalip Singh as proposer under misrepresentation of facts. He withdrew his association with the candidate." The sole contention of the petitioner is that under rule 7 of the Co- operative Societies Rules, the Returning Officer had no jurisdiction to reject the nomination paper of the petitioner on any ground other than the one relating to the eligibility of the petitioner as a candidate.
(2.) Rule 7 reads as follow :- "Scrutiny of the nomination papers. - (1) The Returning Officer shall scrutinise the nomination papers at the place, date and time specified in this behalf in the election programme, hear the objections presented if any by the objectors in person to the eligibility of any candidate and dispose of the objections after such enquiry as he may consider necessary. The decision of rejecting or accepting the nomination papers, and a brief statement of reasons thereof shall be recorded in the nomination papers, and signed by the Returning Officer. While scrutinising the nomination papers, the Returning Officer may :- (a) permit any clerical error in the nomination papers in regard to names of members to be corrected in order to bring them in conformity with the corresponding entries in the zonal list of voters; and (b) where necessary ignore any clerical or printing errors in the said entries. 2. The person objecting under sub-rule (1) must be a voter." A plain reading of the above-quoted rule shows that the sole authority of the Returning Officer is to "scrutinise the nomination papers" with a view to hear any objection presented to him "to the eligibility of any candidate" and to dispose of the same. Admittedly no objection to eligibility of the petitioner as a candidate at the election was filed by any one. The impugned order has been passed on the application of Ved Singh which was presented by him personally before the Returning Officer. He had not stated therein that the petitioner was not eligible for being a candidate at the election. He has only stated that his signature on the nomination form was obtained by fraud. Apart from the fact that it is almost unbelievable that the petitioner would have got his name proposed from someone fraudulently, it appears to us that an application of the type moved by Ved Singh respondent is not maintainable before the Returning Officer under rule 7. Ved Singh respondent did not point out anything in the nomination paper of the petitioner which would render him ineligible as a candidate. His proposal having been accepted and acted upon by the petitioner could not be withdrawn unilaterally by Ved Singh respondent in this graceless manner. If he had really been defrauded, he could have filed a suit for cancellation of the nomination paper as having been procured from him by fraud. We, therefore, hold that the impugned order of the Returning Officer was beyond his jurisdiction.
(3.) This writ petition is accordingly allowed and the impugned order is quashed. The Returning Officer may now proceed further with the matter in accordance with law in the light of this decision.;