Case: Manohar Nathurao Samarth  Vs.  Marotrao and Ors.

1. A tricky issue of statutory construction, beset with semantic ambiguity and pervasive possibility, and a prickly provision which, if interpreted literally, leads to absurdity and if construed liberally, leads to rationality, confront the court in these dual appeals by special leave spinning around the eligibility for candidature of an employee under the Life Insurance Corporation and the declaration of his rival,as duly returned in a City Corporation election. A tremendous trifle in one sense, since almost the whole term has run out. And yet, divergent decisions of Division Benches of Madras and Calcutta and a recent unanimous ruling of a Bench of five judges of Punjab and Haryana together with the Bombay High Courts decision under appeal have made the precedential erudition sufficiently conflicting for this Court to intervene and declare the law, guided by the legislative text but informed by the imperatives of our constitutional order2. This little preface leads us on to a brief narration of the admitted facts. The appellant (in2406 of 1977) was a candidate for election to the Corporation of the City of Nagpur from Ward 34 and his nearest rival wasalso. Judged by the plurality of votes, the appellant secured a large lead over his opponents and was declared elected. The end of the poll process is often the beginning of the forensic process at the instance of the defeated candidates with its protracted trial and appeals upon appeals, thus making elections doubly expensive and terribly traumatic. The habit of accepting defeat with grace, save in gross cases, is a sign of countrys democratic maturity. Anyway, in the present case, when the appellant was declared the returned candidate the respondent challenged the verdict in court onineligibility of the former who was, during the election, a development officer under the Life Insurance Corporation (for short, the LIC). The lethal legal infirmity, pressed with success, by the respondent was that under Regulation 25 of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (Staff) Regulations, 1960 (briefly, the Regulations) framed by the LIC, all its employees were under an embargo on taking part in municipal elections, save with the permission of the Chairman. Therefore, the appellant who was such an employee and had not sought or got the Chairmans permission laboured under a legal ineligibility as contemplated in Section 15(g) of the City of Nagpur Corporation Act, 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). Both the Courts below shot down the poll verdict with this statutory projectile and the aggrieved appellant urges before us the futility of this invalidatory argument.

Reasoning:
17. I hold that the impact of Regulation 25(4) is not to imposeon an LIC employee to be a member of a municipal corporation. Its effect is not on the candidature but on the employment itself. In the present case, I am told that the appellant has since resigned his post. The ultimate result of the reasoning that appeals to us is that the judgment of the High Court must be reversed and the appellant restored to the poll verdict and be regarded as validly returned member of the Nagpur City Corporation.I am satisfied that the view of the High Court on this branch ofis correct. I would therefore allow appeal2406 of 1977 and dismiss appeal356 of 1978. Parties will bear their costs at this late stage when long litigation has kept in suspended animation the constituencys right to representation.18. In this view, the next appeal by the first respondent does not fall to be considered althoughhas pressed his contention that the High Court was wrong. I do not think it necessary to discuss elaborately the legal issue except to state that the view taken by the Bombay High Court in Pyare Sahebe Saheb Gulzar Chhotumiya Sawazi v. Dashrathcorrect. I am constrained to state that the draftsmanship of the provision is dubious and the court in this decision has had to salvage sense out of alternative absurdity flowing from fidelity to pedantry. It is clear, in election law, that a defeated candidate cannot claim a seat through an election petition merely out of speculative possibilities of success. The reasoning of the Bombay High Court not merely accords with then criteria incorporated in the Representation of the People Act,1951 as well as in the rulings thereon by this Court but also is in consonance with the election sense. It is true that there is no common law rule applicable in this area and election statutes have to be strictly construed but that does not doctrinally drive thesurrender to bizarre verbalism when a different construction may inject reasonableness into the provision.19. Section 428 of the Corporation Act aims at sense and when a plurality of contestants are in the run other than the one whose election is set aside, predictability of the next highest becomes a misty venture. The rule in Section 428 contains the corrective in such situations and the pregnant expression against whose election no cause or objection is found gives jurisdiction to the court to deny the declaration by the next highest and to direct a fresh election when the constituency willconcur in the reasoning of Masodkar, J. in the said ruling.I am satisfied that the view of the High Court on this branch ofis correct. I would therefore allow appeal2406 of 1977 and dismiss appeal356 of 1978. Parties will bear their costs at this late stage when long litigation has kept in suspended animation the constituencys right to representation.I am satisfied that the view of the High Court on this branch ofis correct. I would therefore allow appeal2406 of 1977 and dismiss appeal356 of 1978. Parties will bear their costs at this late stage when long litigation has kept in suspended animation the constituencys right to representation.