JASBIR KAUR Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PRESENT petition is filed invoking jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) IN nutshell, the contention of the petitioners are that the petitioners are women voters of the Village Ambala Jattan. Petitioner Nos. 1 and 2 belongs to Schedule Caste category; whereas petitioner no.3 belongs to General category. As per the Article 243-D of the Constitution of India, in every panchayat not less then 1/3rd of the total number of seats, shall be reserved for women belonging to every category. It is alleged by the petitioners that in the election of the Gram Panchayat, one seat for women was reserved in the General category and one seat was reserved under the scheduled caste category for the women. It is further alleged that all the petitioners filed their nomination papers for the post of Panch. For the election of the Panches for the village of Ambala Jattan, there were total seven posts for the panches and out of seven posts, 4 post were General and 3 post were for Scheduled Caste category and out of them, one was reserved for the General category woman and one was reserved for Schedule Caste woman. It is alleged by the petitioners that in the General category two women i.e. Gurmit Kaur and Kulwinder Kaur filed their nomination papers. It is alleged that there were total 7 candidates including Kulwinder Kaur and Gurmit Kaur for 4 posts. It is further alleged that for the post of Panch under the scheduled castes category, there were six candidates including three women Jasbir Kaur, Ranjit Kaur and Tej Kaur for 3 posts. The petitioners have given chart showing the total votes secured by each candidate under the general category and under the scheduled castes caregory :-

(3.) LEARNED Additional Advocate General, Punjab, appearing for the respondents, argued that in both the categories General as well as Scheduled Castes, only one one post was reserved for the women category, hence, other seats shall be deemed having been reserved for male category. Learned Additional Advocate General, further argued that once Gurmit Kaur was declared elected in the women category, hence Kulwinder Kaur was not rightly declared. It is further argued by the learned Addl. Advocate General that under the scheduled castes category since Ranjit Kaur was declared elected, hence there was no need to declare Jasbir Kaur despite of the fact that she secured second highest votes.