P. C. JAIN, J. - (1.) THIS writ petition is bound to succeed on a very short but surest point that the petitioner who has been unseated from the post of Chairman of the Bharatpur Kisan Krya Vikraya Sahkari Samiti, Bharatpur, was never allowed an opportunity to show cause nor heard, nor served with a notice showing the alleged disqualifications.
(2.) OBVIOUSLY an elected citizen, holding an elected office can never be unseated without observing principles of natural justice. Further an opportunity of hearing against the alleged disqualifications is the basic principle of natural justice, so innovated by the Supreme Court in Smt. Meneka Gandhi's case (1) makes it incumbent upon any such authority, who wants to pass adverse order to first allow an opportunity of hearing to the concerned party. The principal of audi alteram partem, which mandates that no one shall be condemned unheard, as part of the rules of natural justice. This principle is to be applied irrespective of the fact whether the statute in which the impugned order is passed provides for the same or not. Their lordships in the Constitutional Bench, consisting of Beg C. J. , Chandrachud, Bhagwati, Krishna Iyer, Untwalia and Murtaza Kailasam justices observed "natural justice is a great humanising principle intended to invest law with fairness and to secure justice and over the years it has grown into a widely pervasive rule affecting large areas of administrative action. It would not be right to conclude that the audi alterm partem rule is excluded merely because the power to impound a passport might be frustrated, if prior notice and hearing were to be given to the person concerned before impounding his passport. " The present one is a case where elected Chairman has been deprived of the office without a fundamental compliance of these principles. We are shocked and surprised that this can happen in 1987, and whether the authority who passed the order was treating it as 1787 instead of 1987 looking two hundred years back.
(3.) THE fact that this has happened for an elective office is still more shocking. It should be known that a person who holds an elected office, represents certain constituency and it is after the election process that he is given such responsibility. Depriving him from that is a case of double jeopardy. We are of the opinion that the writ itself is sufficient to quash this order and we need not go into the other various objections which have been raised by Mr. Dhankar and it will always be open even after giving a fair, reasonable and proper opportunity, which we hope would not happen unless the opportunity is given in a detached manner and objective view is taken rather than subjective view. The present case is of mala fides where the petitioner who was to cast his vote in the elections as a voter has been deprived of that and the election process was sought to be rigged, which makes the situation worse. We feel that the words, which we have used are not strong enough to deal with the present situation. In election process, fairness is the bedrock and it alone preserves democratic traditions. In this case it has been the principle causality. It is a case in which malice and mala fide approach writ large. We are shocked that the State functionaries acted in a mala fide and parti-son manner to assist the other party in the election. ;