FAO No.1257 of 2009 - 1 - IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH **** FAO No.1257 of 2009 DATE OF DECISION: 23.03.2009 **** Ravinderjit Singh . . . . Appellant VS. Jaicob Masih . . . . Respondent **** CORAM : HON’BLE MR.JUSTICE RAKESH KUMAR JAIN **** Present: Mr.V.K. Sandhir, Advocate for the appellant. **** RAKESH KUMAR JAIN J.(ORAL) This appeal is directed against the order of the Election Tribunal-cum-Deputy Commissioner, Jalandhar dated 23.01.2009, whereby election of respondent No. 6(appellant herein) has been set aside and it is ordered that fresh election for the post of Panch of general category be conducted at the earliest with the approval of the State Election Commission , Punjab. In brief the facts of the case are that the election of Gram Panchayat was held on 26.5.2008 on the basis of voter list dated 01.01.2007. Appellant was elected as a Panch and later on elected as Sarpanch. The only question raised before the Tribunal was that the appellant was not an elector in the voter list of the Gram Panchayat, therefore, he had no right to contest the election in view of Rule 9(2) of the Panchayat Election Rules, 1994. The Tribunal verified this fact from the record called from Ram Pal, Clerk of ADC (D), Jalandhar and found that name of the appellant as an elector is conspicuously absent in the voter list of Sansarpur. FAO No.1257 of 2009 - 2 - Therefore, it was held that his nomination paper has been wrongly accepted. Aggrieved against order dated 23.1.2009, the appellant has approached this Court by way of this appeal. On a query put up by this Court that whether it is correct that name of the appellant is not mentioned as a voter in the voter list of 2007, learned counsel for the appellant has very fairly conceded that his name was there in the voter list of 2006 but inadvertently, the same has been deleted in the voter list of 2007. Be that as it may, the fact remains that at the time when nomination paper was filed by the appellant, he was not a voter as a voter list of 2007, therefore, he was ineligible to contest the election for the post of Panch and was thus further ineligible for the post of Sarpanch. In view of the above, I do not find any error in the order passed by the Tribunal whereby the election of the appellant has been set aside and the re-election for the post of one Panch of General category of the Gram Panchayat, Sansarpur has been ordered. At this stage, learned counsel for the appellant prays for giving directions to the State election Commissioner, Punjab to complete the proceedings of Election to the post of Panch of General category of Gram Panchayat, Sansarpur within a time frame. Since the Tribunal has already given a direction that it should be done at the earliest with the approval of the State Election Commission Punjab, I do not find that any further direction is required. Dismissed. (RAKESH KUMAR JAIN) MARCH 23, 2009 JUDGE vivek