Case: Sardar Gurmej Singh Vs. Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon

The material facts may be briefly stated: Sardar Gurmej Singh, the appellant, Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, the present Chief Minister of the State of Punjab and respondent herein, and others were the contesting candidates in the general election held in February 1957 from the Sarhali constituency. The respondent secured the highest number of votes and was duly declared elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly. On 11-4-1957, the appellant filed an election petition (Election Petition No. 22 of 1957) for the declaration that the election of the respondent was void under Section 100 of the Act. It was, inter alia, alleged by him that the respondent and his election agent had appointed a number of persons as the respondents counting and polling agents at different centres and that the said persons were, at the material time, working as lambardars, and, therefore, the respondent was guilty of corrupt practice within the meaning of S. 123 of the Act. The respondent denied the material allegations made in the petition. On the pleading as many as 12 issues were framed, and issues 3 and 8 were taken up for trial as preliminary issues. Issue 8, which is the only relevant issue for the present enquiry,Lambardar a person in the service of Government or is it covered by any of the clauses of S. 123(7) of the Representation of the People Act,Election Tribunal held against the respondent on both the preliminary issues. On issue 8 it held that a lambardar was a revenue officer and village accountant in the service of Government within the meaning of cl. (f) of sub-sec. (7) of S. 123 of the Act. On the basis of the findings on the preliminary issues, the Tribunal directed that the remaining issues be set down for hearing. The respondent canvassed the correctness of that order by filing a petition in the High Court of Punjab at Chandigarh under Arts. 226 and 227 of the Constitution. The petition was heard by a division bench of the Punjab High Court, consisting of Falshaw and Mehar Singh, JJ. The learned Judges by their order dated 12-3-1959, confirmed the order of the Election Tribunal on issue 3, but set aside its order on issue 8. The learned Judges heldare undoubtedly a class of revenue officers appointed by the Government for the purpose of collecting the land revenue and receiving a statutory percentage on the sum realised by them as their remuneration for so doing, but whereas they were included along with village accountants who are called Patwaris in this State and by other names set out in the Section in other parts of India, they are clearly excluded by the provision of clausethe scope of this finding was subject to some controversy, it is clear that the learned Judges intended to hold that, though a lambardar was disqualified under the corresponding sub-s. (8) of S. 123 of the Act before it was amended in 1956, he was excluded from the operation of that Section by cl. (f) of sub-sec. (7) of the amended Section. On the basis of that finding, the High Court set aside the decision of the Tribunal on issue 8 and confirmed the same in other respects. The appellant filed the present appeal by obtaining the special leave of this Court.

Reasoning: 6. It is not necessary in this case to express our opinion on the question whether the officers in the service of a State or the Union, who are not in charge of land revenue but are connected with other sources of revenue such as customs, income-tax or the like, fall within the category of "revenue officers".It is said that there cannot be any logical basis for disqualifying a patwari and qualifying a headman in the matter of elections, for, the argument proceeds, a headman has greater influence on the electorate than a patwari. This Court is not concerned with the policy underling the statute, but only with the expressed intention of the Parliament.21. Under the amended clause, lambardars are apparently excluded from the definition of "revenue officers". We are referring to this latest amendment not as a help to the construction of the clause, but to meet the argument that there could not have been any policy underlying the distinction between the said two categories of village officers.The fact that Parliament in its latest amendment has prima facie sustained the distinction may be an indication that in its view there is relevant difference between a lambardar and village accountants. We would, therefore, hold that a village headman cannot be brought within the words "the like" in the said clause.22. In this view, it is not necessary to express our opinion on the question whether a lambardar is a person in the service of the Government within the meaning of S. 123 (7) of the Act.23. Before parting with this case, we must express our feeling that the final disposal of the election petition should not have been delayed so long. The elections were held on 24-2-1957, the respondent was declared elected on 25-2-1957, and the election petition was filed on 11-4-1957. Though 21/2 years have elapsed, the petition has not yet been finally disposed of. We hope that the election petition would be disposed of on other issues as expeditiously aslambardar to be a disqualified officer should not only be in the service of Government but should be a revenue officer within the meaning of cl. (f) of sub-s. (7) of S. 123 of the Act.If he was not one of the revenue officers within the meaning of cl. (f) of the said sub-section the question whether he was in the service of Government would not arise formay, therefore, be held without contradiction that a revenue officer is one who is employed in the business of revenue, and the term is comprehensive enough to take in all such revenue officers in the chain of hierarchy in the revenue administration of theis not necessary in this case to consider whether the inclusive definition enlarges the meaning of the words "revenue officers", or makes them explicit and clear, viz., that the enumerated officers are within the fold of "revenue officers"; for, in either construction the village accountants would be revenue officers. But we cannot accept the argument that what is excluded was not part of that from which it is excluded, and that lambardars were not revenue officers and yet had to be excluded by way of abundant caution. If so, it follows that the village officers, who included lambardars, were excluded from the group of revenue officers, with the result that they are freed from the disqualification imposed by the provisions of the said clause.10. But it is said that this construction would make the words "revenue officers" and the words "excluding other village officers" unnecessary, for, the same result could be achieved by enacting simply "village accountants, such as, patwaris, lekhpals, talatis, karnams and the like". This argument, if we may say so, overlooks the difference between the terms "revenue officers" and "villagewords "revenue officers", in whatever sense they are used, cannot obviously comprehend officers who are not revenue officers, and in that situation there is no necessity to exclude such officers from the group of revenue officers. The legislative device of exclusion is adopted only to exclude a part from the whole, which, but for the exclusion, continues to be part of it. This interpretation must be rejected as it involves the recognition of words which are surplusage.12. Nor has the alternative construction any higherconstruction suffers from two defects. Firstly, village officers cannot be the species carved out of the genus "village accountants", for, the words "village officers" have a wider connotation than the words "village accountants". To accept this interpretation is to read "village accountants" as "village officers". Secondly, if the words were so substituted both the groups of words "village officers" and "other village officers" become surplusage, as the same result can be achieved by enacting simply "revenue officers including the enumerated officers; for, according to the learned Counsel, the object of the inclusive clauses is only to bring in the enumerated officer. This interpretation also deserves to be rejected for the reason that its acceptance involves the re-writing of the clause and the recognition of the unnecessary words therein. It also involves excluding something from a category which ex hypothesi does not include it; the exclusion in that view is whollywe have held that the words "such as etc......", and "the like" are only descriptive of village accountants, the observations extracted above seem to suggest that the said words are descriptive of the composite expression "revenue officers including village accountants". Even in that view, we do not think that that excluding clause refers to village accountants only and not to revenuethe reasons mentioned, we hold, accepting the plain meaning of the words used in the Section that lambardars, being village revenue officers, are excluded from the operation of cl. (f) of sub-s. (7) of S. 123 of the Act.A comparative study of the respective duties of a village headman and a patwari bring out the distinction between the two, namely, that the former is not only an agent of the State in the village but also the recognised representative of the village, and the latter is a comparatively minor officer entrusted with the duty of maintaining the accounts and other relevant records pertaining to the revenue business.