IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) TUESDAY, THE NINTH DAY OF SEPTEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE L.NARASIMHA REDDY WRIT PETITION No. 17865 of 2006 Between: Yannam Sujatha W/o. Rama Rao R/o. Challapalli Village and Post, Krishna District. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The District Collector, Krishna District, at Machilipatnam. 2 The Mandal Development Officer, Challapalli (Mandal) Krishna District. 3 Kumari Bhagya Laxmi Bandela D/o. Veera Raghavulu Challapalli Village and Mandal, Krishna District. .....RESPONDENTS Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Aﬃdavit ﬁled herein the High Court will be pleased to call for the records from the Respondents herein by issuing a writ, order or Direction more particularly one in the nature of writ of Certiorari by quashing the Form Number -29 certifying that the Respondent No.3 herein as being elected as 18th ward Member of Challapally Gam Panchayat, Challapally Mandal, Krishna District by declaring the same as arbitrary, illegal, unjust, contrary to law and also in violation of Provisions of Section 17 of A.P. Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 and also grant such other relief or reliefs as this Hon'ble Court may deem ﬁt and proper in the circumstances of the case. Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.P.SRIDHAR RAO Counsel for the Respondents: GP FOR PANCHAYAT RAJ & RURAL DEV. The Court made the following ORDER: The elections to the Gram Panchayat, Challapalli Village, Krishna District were held on 06.08.2006 for Ward No.18. The petitioner, the third respondent and certain others ﬁled nominations. The petitioner raised an objection in relation to the third respondent stating that the latter is under-aged as on the date of ﬁling of nomination. The Returning Oﬃcer did not agree with the petitioner and accepted the nomination. Ultimately, the third respondent was elected as Ward Member. This writ petition is ﬁled with a prayer to declare Form No.29 under which the election of the third respondent was certiﬁed for Ward No.18, as arbitrary, illegal, unjust and contrary to law, apart from being in violation of Section 17 of the Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 (for short ‘the Act’). The petitioner contends that there is a conclusive proof to show that the third respondent did not fulﬁll the qualiﬁcation of age stipulated under Section 17 of the Act as on the date of filing of nomination. The second respondent ﬁled a counter-aﬃdavit, furnishing the particulars of the elections that were conducted in the year 2006. The third respondent ﬁled a counter-aﬃdavit, denying the allegations of the petitioner. She raised an objection as to the maintainability of the writ petition. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner, the learned Government Pleader for Panchayat Raj for respondents 1 and 2 and the learned counsel for the third respondent. In pure and simple terms, the petitioner wants this Court to set aside the election of the third respondent, on the ground that she did not fulﬁll the qualiﬁcation of age as on the date of ﬁling of nomination. Reliance is placed upon the copy of the S.S.C. certiﬁcate of the third respondent. The Act and the Rules made there under, prescribe a detailed procedure in relation to conducting election as well as resolution of disputes arising out of it. Even assuming that the nomination of a candidate was wrongfully accepted or rejected, at the most, it constitutes a ground for challenging the election by ﬁling an election petition. The Act and the Rules do not provide for examination of the correctness of the election in any other manner. On the other hand, Article 243 (o)(b) of the Constitution of India and Section 233 of the Act prohibit to take away the jurisdiction of any other forum, for resolution of the disputes relating to elections. The petitioner did not avail the remedy of ﬁling of election petition. The third respondent ﬂatly denied the allegation of the petitioner as regards her age. At any rate, this is not the forum to determine the qualiﬁcation or disqualiﬁcation of the candidate, once it is found that the writ petition is not maintainable. Hence, the writ petition is dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs. ___________________ L.NARASIMHA REDDY,J Dt:09.09.2008 kdl