- (1.)THE petitioners in these two writ petitions are all residents of different wards of the Jabalpur Cantonment and they have filed these writ petitions as public Interest Litigations challenging the electoral rolls notified on 3-1-2008 for elections to the Jabalpur Cantonment Board.
(2.)THE relevant facts briefly are that the Cantonments Act, 1924 was replaced by a new Cantonments Act, 2006 (for short 'the 2006 Act') by parliament. The 2006 Act was brought into force by notification dated 18-12-2006. Under Section 31 of the 2006 Act, the Central Government made and notified on 21-8-2007 the Cantonment Electoral Rules, 2007 (for short 'the 2007 Rules' ). Thereafter, the preliminary electoral rolls of the Jabalpur cantonment were published on 20-11-2007 inviting claims and objections and the final electoral rolls of the Jabalpur Cantonment were published on 3-1-2008. Aggrieved, the petitioners have filed these two writ petitions under Art. 226 of the Constitution.
(3.)IN W. P. No. 1406 of 2008, the petitioners have prayed for writ or order or direction to disqualify the Defence Personnel included in the electoral rolls of all the eight Wards of the Jabalpur Cantonment as electors. Mr. Ahadulla Usmani, learned Counsel for the petitioners submitted that the inclusion of the Defence Personnel in the final electoral rolls of the Jabalpur cantonment is contrary to the provisions of the 2006 Act. He submitted that a reading of the Statement of Objects and Reasons appended to the Bill which finally became the 2006 Act and a reading of the Preamble of the 2006 Act would show that greater democratization by enhanced representation of the elected members and parity between the official and elected members of the cantonment Board were the main objects of the 2006 Act. He submitted that in section 12 (1) of the 2006 Act, the word 'population' means only civilian population because Section 12 (2) states that the 'population' in Section 12 (1)has to be calculated according to the latest official census and the official census only shows the civil population without the defence personnel of a Cantonment. He argued that since Section 12 (1) refers to only civilian population, the defence personnel cannot be the electors for the purpose of election to the cantonment Board and cannot be included in the electoral rolls. He also submitted that Section 12 (3) of the 2006 Act provides that Category-I cantonments, such as Jabalpur, will have eight official members and eight elected members and since defence personnel were to be represented by official members, they were not entitled to elect their representatives. He next submitted that Section 28 (1) of the 2006 Act provides that the person who has resided in the Cantonment for a period of not less than six months immediately preceding the qualifying date shall be entitled to be enrolled as an elector and the Explanation to Section 28 (1) of the 2006 Act makes it clear that residence in a place or area comprising the Cantonment is deemed to be residence in the cantonment for the purpose of Section 28 (1) of the 2006 Act. He submitted that Section 2 (zt) of the 2006 Act would show that 'resident' in relation to a cantonment means a person who maintains therein a house or a portion of a house. He submitted that the Defence Personnel who do not maintain house or a portion of the house in the Cantonment area and live in buildings provided by the Government cannot, therefore, be said to be residing in the Cantonment area and, therefore, do not qualify as electors within the meaning of Section 28 of the 2006 Act.