1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR. WRIT PETITION NO.3923 OF 2009. Ku. Ranjana Govinda Kinnake, R/o. Gram Panchayat Urjanagar, Tah. & Dist. Chandrapur. .. PETITIONER. // VERSUS // 1. The Additional Commissioner, Nagpur Division, Nagpur. And 19 others. .. RESPONDENTS. _______________________________________________________________________ Office Notes, Office Memoramda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders of directions Court's or Judge's orders. and Registrar's Orders. ______________________________________________________________________________ Shri V.G.Dhage, Advocate for Petitioner. Shri P.D. Kothari, A.G.P. for Respondents No.1 to 3. Shri A.S. Kilor, Advocate for Respondent No.6. CORAM : R.C.CHAVAN, J. DATED : SEPTEMBER 29, 2009. 1. This petition is directed against orders passed by Additional Collector, Chandrapur and Additional Commissioner, Nagpur whereby the Additional Collector held that rejection of nomination paper of respondent No. 6 Ashatai in the elections of Sarpanch for Gram Panchayat, Urja Nagar by Returning Officer was not correct. The Returning Officer had rejected nomination of respondent No.6 on the ground that she had failed to submit a valid caste certificate and validity certificate as was required by Section 30-1A of the Bombay Village Panchayats Act, 1958. This Section reads as under : 2 “30-1A : Person contesting election for reserved office of Sarpanch to submit Caste Certificate and Validity Certificate. - Every person desirous of contesting election to the office of the Sarpanch reserved for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or, as the case may be, Backward Class of citizens, shall be required to submit along with the nomination paper, Caste Certificate issued by the Competent Authority and the Validity Certificate issued by the Scrutiny Committee in accordance with the provisions of the Maharashtra Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, De-notified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Category (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Act, 2000.” 2. Respondent No.6 had questioned this order of the Returning Officer before the Collector, who held that respondent No.6 had been elected against the post of Scheduled Tribe and therefore, she was elected from that category and therefore, her nomination could not have been rejected. The Commissioner upheld this order. 3. The learned counsel for the petitioner has a valid grievance that the order passed by the Additional Commissioner is indeed unintelligible. It recounts the arguments of the parties but does not give reasons which prevailed upon him to confirm the order of the Collector. The learned counsel pointed out that the Commissioner had observed towards the end of the order that “.... In vivid amended provision of Act the respondent’s stand and plea that he was not communicated and apprised of the amended Act would be mere excuse, as the settled principle of law that ignorance of law has no excuse.....” 4. He submitted that if the Commissioner was of the view that ignorance of law was no excuse he should have seen that respondent No.6 was obliged to furnish valid caste 3 certificate in view of the provisions of Section 30-1A of the Bombay Village Panchayats Act. 5. The learned counsel for respondent No.6 submitted that the amended provisions of Section 30-1A of the Village Panchayats Act, in fact, had not come into force on the date of nomination of respondent No.6 was rejected i.e. 09.03.2009. They came into force subsequently on 1st August, 2009 and therefore, on that day nomination of respondent No.6 could not have been rejected on that ground and therefore, the Collector and Commissioner was right in holding that the nomination was wrongly rejected. Provisions of Bombay Village Panchayats and the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis (Amendment) Act, 2008 no doubt were published in the Government Gazette on 9th January, 2009, after receiving assent of the Governor. It may be seen that in view of Section 1 of the Amending Act only provisions of Section 1 and 7 came into force on the date of publication of the Act in the official gazette. Section 30-1A of the Bombay Village Panchayats Act was inserted by Section 3 of the amending Act, therefore, this provision did not came into force automatically on 9th January, 2009. 6. The learned counsel for respondent No.6 pointed to an order of Election Commission which shows that this provision came into force from 1st August, 2009. Though he should have relied on original source, rather than reiteration by the Election Commission, since nobody, particularly Assistant Government Pleader, was in a position to point out that this Act has came into force on a different date, it has to be held that the requirement of having a valid caste certificate, was not in force on the the date when respondent No.6’s nomination was 4 rejected. In view of this, though for different reasons, the impugned orders do not deserve to be interfered with. 7. The petition is, therefore, dismissed. JUDGE RR.