Case: Nain Sukh Das And Another Vs. The State Of Uttar Pradesh And Others

The petitioners are three residents of Etah in Uttar Pradesh. They complain that at the by election to the Municipal Board of Etah held on November 2, 1951, December 8, 1951, and March 17, 1952, at which respondents 4, 11 and 12 were respectively elected, the Petitioners were deprived of their rights to exercise their votes and to seek their election as candidates, as those by-elections were held on communal lines on the basis of separate electorates contrary to the provisions of the Constitution.

Reasoning: It is true, as pointed out in theCross Roads case[1950] S.C.R 594that article 32 provides, in some respects, for a more effective remedy through this court than article 226 does through the High Courts. But the scope of the remedy is clearly narrower in that it is restricted solely to enforcement of fundamental rights conferred by Part III of the Constitution. Any right, for instance, which the petitioners may have as rate-payers in the Municipality to insist that the Board should be legally constituted and that respondents 3, 4, 11 and 12, who are not properly elected or nominated members, should not be permitted to take part in the proceedings of the Board, is outside the purview of article 32, as such right, even if it exists, is not a fundamental right conferred by Partis plain that the fundamental right conferred by article 15(1) is conferred on a citizen as an individual and is a guarantee against his being subjected to discrimination in the matter of the rights, privileges and immunities pertaining to him as a citizen generally. It is not the petitioners case that any discrimination is now being practised or threatened against them. Their grievance is that the mode of election by separate electorates formed on communal lines involved discrimination against them in relation to seats other than those reserved for their respective communities as to which they could not exercise their right to vote or their right to stand as candidates. There is no suggestion that the petitioners actually sought to assert those rights by taking appropriate proceedings to have the bar removed and the election conducted in accordance with the Constitution. In fact, the petitioners acquiesced in the elections being conducted under the old system of separate electorates and felt no discrimination having been practised against them until a no-confidence motion was tabled recently against the former Chairman who has since lost his seat as a result of that motion having been carried. Thus, the infringement of their fundamental rights under article 15(1) and art 61 14, that is, the discrimination practised against them, of which they now complain, related to rights which they in fact never sought to exercise and took no steps to assert, while there was still room for doing so, and for the exercise of which the opportunity is nowthe petitioners could claim such relief as ratepayers of the Municipality in appropriately framed proceedings, but there is no question of enforcing petitioners funda mental right under article 15(1) or article 14 in such claim, There is still less ground for seeking relief on that basis aoainst respondent 3 who is only a nominatedpetitioners appear to have misconceived their remedy