1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR WRIT PETITION NO.2945 OF 2010 (Dattarao s/o Namdeorao Ingole vs. District Deputy Registrar/Returning Officer (APMC) and another) WITH WRIT PETITION NO.3188 OF 2010 (Manohar Rambhau Shewale vs. District Deputy Registrar/Returning Officer, APMC and another) __________________________________________________________________ Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. WRIT PETITION NO.2945 OF 2010 Shri R.N. Ghuge, Advocate for petitioner. Shri S. Ahirkar, Assistant Government Pleader for respondent no.1. S/Shri A.M. Ghare and S.M. Puranik, Advocates for interveners. ------ WRIT PETITION NO.3188 OF 2010 Shri R.N. Ghuge, Advocate for petitioner. Shri S. Ahirkar, Assistant Government Pleader for respondent no.1. Shri S.M. Puranik, Advocate for interveners. ---------- CORAM : D.B. BHOSALE AND P.B.VARALE, JJ. DATED : JULY 20, 2010 2 CIVIL APPLICATION NOS.1911/2010 AND 1958/2010 IN WRIT PETITION NO.2945/2010 AND CIVIL APPLICATION NO.1965/2010 IN WRIT PETITION NO.3188/2010 Heard learned Counsel for the parties. By consent, civil applications for intervention are allowed. --------- WRIT PETITION NOS.2945/2010 AND 3188/2010 Heard learned Counsel for the parties. In these writ petitions, the petitioners are challenging the notification dated 16/6/2010 whereby election of the Managing Committee of Agricultural Produce Market Committee, Malegaon (for short, “APMC”) has been declared by respondent no.1. The petitioners have also prayed for postponing the election of APMC till the elections of various Seva Sahakari Societies are completed and their new Managing Committees are constituted. The petitioners have further prayed for direction to respondent no.1 to include names of 3 the elected members of newly constituted Managing Committees of various Seva Sahakari Societies and to permit them to participate in the election process of the APMC. In addition to the above-mentioned prayers, in Writ Petition No.3188/2010, the petitioner is seeking direction to respondent no.1 to include the names of the members of Managing Committee of his Seva Sahakari Society, Chandas in the voters' lists for electing the Market Committee of APMC. There is no dispute that the elections of APMC are declared after about 4½ years. The term of the last Managing Committee of the APMC got over sometime in 2005. We are not entering into the reasons why elections of Managing Committee of the APMC did not take place earlier. Suffice it to state that at one point of time, there was an order of stay granted by the Supreme Court in several special leave petitions including a special leave petition filed by one of the voters of respondent no.2-APMC. 4 That petition was ultimately withdrawn. It is against this backdrop, election of the APMC was declared by issuing the notification dated 16/6/2010 and the last date for filing nominations was 30/6/2010. Just before this stage got over, on 28/6/2010, Writ Petition No.2945/2010 was filed and on 1/7/2010, notice before admission was issued by the Division Bench (S.A.Bobde and A.B. Chaudhari, JJ.) making it returnable on 15/7/2010. By this order, the parties were directed to maintain status quo. In view thereof, further election programme got stayed. As per the impugned notification, the entire election process should get over sometime in the second week of August 2010. Before the impugned notification was issued, on 3/4/2010, provisional voters' list was published and objections were invited till 30/4/2010. Thereafter on 30/5/2010, final voters' list was published. Admittedly, neither the petitioners nor their Societies or any other member of their Societies so also members of the Managing Committees of the 5 Societies, who got elected very recently, raised any objection to the voters' list. It is also not disputed that neither the petitioners nor any other person connected with their Societies at any point of time approached the District Deputy Registrar seeking amendment of the final voters' list as contemplated by sub-rule (12) of Rule 36 of the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development and Regulation) Rules, 1967 (for short, “the Rules”). Writ Petition No.2945/2010 was filed on 28/6/2010 and the petitioner therein claims that election of the Society of which he is a Member, namely, Shelgaon Bondade Seva Sahakari Sanstha, was declared by notification dated 21/5/2010 and the election process was completed sometime in the second week of July 2010 and the notification under Section 73(3) of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act, 1960 was published on 16/7/2010. In this election, petitioner got elected as one of the members of the Managing Committee of the said Society. There is no dispute that the petitioner has filed nomination for contesting APMC election from 6 Gram Panchayat constituency. In the backdrop of the facts mentioned above, the petitioners have challenged the notification on the following grounds : There are total 89 primary agricultural societies, which are within the area of operation of APMC and they are voters for electing Managing Committee of the APMC. According to the petitioners, out of these primary agricultural societies, 47 societies are undergoing election process for electing new Managing Committees. Learned Counsel for the petitioners submits that if the elections as per the impugned notification are allowed to be held, about 47 Primary Agricultural Societies are likely to lose representation on the APMC. He contends that elections of these primary Societies were also not held for quite long time. It is pertinent to note that none of the societies referred to by the petitioners in the petitions, namely, 47 primary agricultural societies, has come forward making the grievance as made by 7 the petitioners in the writ petitions. There is no dispute that the names of the members of Managing Committees, existing as on the date of preparation of the voters' list, of all these societies are included in the voters' list prepared for the election of APMC. In view thereof, the first contention of learned Counsel for the petitioners that these societies are likely to lose representation deserves to be rejected outright. Merely because fresh elections of these societies are being held and new Managing Committees are likely to be elected cannot be a ground for withholding the election of APMC, which is due for last about four years. At no point of time, either petitioners or any other Society raised objection to the provisional voters' list seeking inclusion of names of the members of existing Managing Committees of these Societies. Learned Counsel for the petitioners invited our attention to the voters' list and to the election programme of Shelgaon Bondade Seva Sahakari Society Maryadit and submitted that the voters' list is not prepared as contemplated by sub- 8 rule (3) of Rule 36 of the Rules indicating details about members belonging to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, etc. He submitted that this vitiates the whole election programme and on this ground, the impugned notification deserves to be set aside. In support of this proposition, he placed reliance upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in Babaji Kondaji Garad and others vs. Nasik Merchants Cooperative Bank Ltd., Nasik and others (AIR 1984 SC 192). We have perused the aforesaid judgment and in our opinion, the said judgment has no application to the facts of the present case. There is no dispute that earlier Managing Committees of the petitioners' Societies, whose names are included in the voters' list, were elected in accordance with the provisions of Section 73-B of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act, 1960, which provides for reservation of seats on the Managing Committee. It states that notwithstanding anything contained in this Act or in the Rules made thereunder or any Bye-laws of any Society, on the Committee of such Society or 9 class of Societies as the State Government may, by general or special order direct, “four seats” shall be reserved for the reserved categories as indicated in the said provision. It is not the case of the petitioners that elections of members of earlier Managing Committees whose names are included in the voters' list were not conducted as per Section 73-B of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act. That being so, it is clear that at least four members belonging to the reserved categories, as mentioned in Section 73-B, were there on the Managing Committees of all these Societies including the petitioners' Societies. In our opinion, this ground of challenge also, therefore, deserves to be rejected. Learned Counsel for the petitioners next submitted that respondent no.1, as provided for in sub-rule (12) of Rule 36 of the Rules, ought to have, on his own, waited for elections of 45 agricultural societies to get over. He submitted that respondent no.1 was aware about such elections being held. In support of this contention, he invited our attention to the order dated 11/12/2009 annexed to the 10 amendment application filed by the petitioner in Writ Petition No.2945/2010. We have perused the order dated 11/12/2009. That order was issued in December 2009 and it is not clear that after issuance of the said order, elections of how many Societies were conducted. The petitioners have not and could not place any material on record to show that till the voters' list was finalised, how many Societies had already conducted their elections. It is in this backdrop, we do not find any substance in this submission of the petitioners. Moreover, the petitioners have not approached respondent no.1 District Deputy Registrar for seeking amendment of voters' list as contemplated by sub-rule (12) of Rule 36 of the Rules till this date. It was also possible for the petitioners or their Societies to approach this Court at appropriate stage. The law is well settled that once the election process is set in motion, the Courts are not expected to interfere and/or grant stay to the election process, even though there may be some alleged illegality or 11 breach of rules while preparing the electoral roll. In the present case, we do not find any illegality having been committed by the concerned Authority while either preparing the voters' list or declaring the election programme. The judgment relied upon by learned Counsel for the petitioners in Ahmednagar Zilla S.D.V. & P. Sangh Ltd. and another vs. State of Maharashtra and others {(2004) 1 SCC 133)}, in our opinion, will not apply to the facts of the present case. In that case, the voters' list was prepared on the basis of amended bye-laws and those amended bye- laws were challenged and set aside and in view thereof, the Supreme Court interfered in the election process. That is not the situation in the present case. In Pundlik vs. State of Maharashtra and others (2005 (4) Mh.L.J. 254), the Supreme Court after observing that it would not interfere as the election process had already started, granted relief in view of the fact that the elections were postponed by the State Government and the due date for 12 commencement of fresh election had not come. This judgment of the Supreme Court is of no avail to the petitioners. In Writ Petition No.3188/2010, admittedly the names of the members of Managing Committee of Chandas Seva Sahakari Society do not find place in the voters' list. There is no dispute that names of the members were not included even in the provisional voters' list and at no point of time, either the members of the Managing Committee or the Society raised any objection within the time stipulated for raising objection to the provisional voters' list. In the circumstances, we do not find any reason to interfere with the election process in writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution. Hence, the writ petitions fail and dismissed as such. Respondent no.1 is directed to commence election process forthwith from the stage at which it was arrested in view of the order of status quo granted by this Court on 1/7/2010. 13 The prayer of learned Counsel for the petitioners for continuing the order of status quo for a further period of four weeks is rejected. JUDGE JUDGE khj