RAMADHAR PANDEY, EX-MEMBER, M.P. LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Vs. STATE OF M.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition is directed against the election of some of the Respondents to the Maihar Municipality held on 27th July 1958. The contention of the Petitioners is that the elections were bad because separate electoral rolls for the Maihar Municipality and/or the wards thereof were not prepared. It is also contended that scrutiny was not made of the nominations of the candidates with regard to their being qualified under the Act. These are the only two points which have been brought to our notice, and it is therefore not necessary to recount other facts.

(2.) FORMERLY , there existed in the Rewa State the Rewa State Municipalities Act, 1946, which was adopted for the purposes of Maihar. Subsequently on the 21 June 1956 the principal Act was amended by the Rewa State Municipalities (Vindhya Pradesh Amendment) Act, 1955 (No. 8 of 1956). It is the provisions of the principal Act read in the light of the amendments made which have led to this petition.

(3.) THE Section in question was replaced by another Section by the amending Act, which provided that subject to the provisions of the amending Act the term of office of members of a Board shall be for a period of three years from the date on which their election or nomination has been notified under Section 34, provided that the Government may by notification from time to time extend the term of office of members of the Boards so however that the total period for which the term is so extended does not in the aggregate exceed one and a half years. It was admitted before us that the term of the old Board came finally to an end in January 1958 necessitating fresh elections. By the time certain rules which were published in the Madhya Pradesh Gazette of the 27th December 1957 came into force, vital changes had been made in the principal Act by the amending Act, and we now begin to scrutinize how the amendments operated and how far -reaching they were.