Constitution of India 1950.

Article 226-Election process-Interference by High Court-Postponement of elections-Interim orders and directions-Passing of Caution and reluctance-Necessity of.

Article 324-Electoral rolls Preparation of Election Commission not having own staff-Central and State Government staff-Enumerators-Objections in list-Disposal of-Efficiency and impartiality-Emphasised.

Article 329 (b)-Electoral rolls-Preparation and publication of Whether part of election process-Allegations of irregularities in electoral rolls- Interference by High Court in electoral matters-Whether bar to interference.

The Representation of People Act 1950 Sections 14 (b) and 21.

The Representation of People Act 1951.

Election Commission-Giving of directions to Chief Electoral Officers Whether have force of law-Violation of directions Whether create rights and obligations under Election Lay.

Electoral Roll-Preparatlon and revision-What is Special revision-When arises-Qualifying date in regard to electoral roll-What is.

The Registration of Electors Rules 1960. Rules 10 to 2) and 26,

Conduct of Election Rules 1961

"basis roll of constituency-What is-Voters list-Basis of free and fair elections--Inclusion in electoral roll deletion of ineligible persons wrongly Included Rights of eligible Voter-Fee of 10 p. for challenge-Levy of Whether unreasonable.

Administrative Law

Constitutional institutions and functionaries-Discharge of duties by Presumption of existence of bonafides-Preserve and protect Integrity of bonafides-Preserve and protect integrity of constitutional institutions-Duty of courts.

A writ petition was filed in the Calcutta High Court claiming the following reliefs: (1) That the Chief Election Commissioner and the Chief Electoral Officer be restrained from acting, either by themselves or through their subordinates, in pursuance of the instructions or directions Issued by them from time to time; (ii) that they should be restrained from scoring out any names from the electoral rolls which were finally published; (iii) that they should be restrained from issuing or publishing any notification under s. 15 (2) of the Representation of People Act of 1951 without preparing the electoral rolls de novo, after the disposal of the appeals against orders whereby claims and objections were decided; and (iv) that they should be restrained from holding elections to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly until the disposal of all the claims, objections and appeals under the Representation of People Acts of 1950 and 1951,

The writ petitioners who were eight in number were enrolled as voters in the electoral roll of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. Some of them were office-bearers of political parties like the West Bengal State Muslim League, West Bengal Unit of the Janta Party, All India Christian Democrate Party and West Bengal Congress Legislative Party. It was contended in the writ petition that the guidelines or instructions issued by the Chief Flectoral Officer by circular dated March 12, 1981 asking all the District Officers and the Sub-Divisional Officers to make a de novo intensive revision of the electoral rolls for the general election to the Legislative Assembly, West Bengal, without reference to the then existing electoral rolls are vague, unreasonable and arbitrary as a result of which it would not be possible to hold free and fair elections on the basis of those rolls, and that the guidelines or instructions issued were blatantly violated in certain cases, and that the exact extent of the polling areas was not demarcated clearly, no house-to-house visits were made and the names of the members of each household who had attained the age of 21 year on the prescribed date were not recorded in several cases. By a Memorandum dated May 12, 1981 which was after the work of the intensive revision of the electoral rolls had begun, the Election Commission of India informed the Chief Electoral Officers of all the States and the Union Territories that its attention was drain to certain irregularities in the matter of revision of electoral rolls and that in many cases lists pertaining to certain polling booths were found to be defective. The Draft Electoral Roll which was published in September 1981 were manipulated by including therein not only Bangladesh Nationals but minors, dead persons and refugees from Assam who have living in refugee camps. These manipulations in the electoral roll became possible because of the deliberate infiltration of the CPI (M) members of the Government staff in the election machinery as enumerators. The infirmities in the electoral rolls were of such a basic and inherent character that unless a further de novo revision of the electoral rolls was undertaken, it would be unfair to allow the elections to be held on the basis of the said electoral rolls. Complaints relating to individual cases were sent to the Election Commission but no attention was paid to them. The scheme of the Election Law and the rules framed thereunder are so designed that unless all the objections were decided by the appellate authority and the Registration Officer and the electoral rolls are correspondingly amended especially when a de novo revision of the electoral rolls is directed to be made it is impermissible to issue a notification under s. 15 (2) of the Act of 1951. It was further alleged that nearly 8 lakhs complaints were filed in regard to the voters' lists but no notice was issued to the concerned persons while deciding those complaints. In a few cases where notices were sent not enough time was given to the complainants to appear before the concerned authorities to make their contentions. Article 329 was no bar to the filing the writ petition under Article 226 as the petitioners were not challenging the 'commencement of polling'.

On February 12, 1982 a single judge of the High Court issued a rule on the writ petition and granted the ad-interim relief prayed for. The writ petition was directed to be listed on February 19, 1982 when, after some arguments, the matter was adjourned to February 25, 1982. Thereafter four special leave petitions were filed in this Court against the ad-interim orders passed by the Single Judge. On February 23, 1982 certain directions were issued in one of those special leave petitions and it was later ordered that the single judge of the High Court should proceed to hear the matter.

The writ petition was heard by the Single Judge on February 25, 1982, who directed the respondents to the writ petition to take certain steps before issuance of the notification under section 15 (2) of the Act of 1951, in effect, confirming the ad-interim order dated February 12, 1982.

In the four appeals to this Court, the writ petitioners who succeeded in obtaining interim orders from the High Court are in the array of respondents. Three of those appeals were filed by persons who contended that the High Court ought not to have interfered with the election process which was imminent. The fourth appeal was filed by the Election Commission of India, the Chief Election Commissioner, and the Chief Electoral Officer who contended that the High Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the writ petition by reason of Article 329 (b) of the Constitution, that the election process which had already begun should not have been interfered with by the High Court and that the recommendation made to the Governor of West Bengal by the Election Commission under s. 15 (2) of the Act of 1951 was being thwarted by frivolous and baseless objections raised by the writ petitioners. In their counter-affidavits to the writ petition it was contended that the electoral rolls which were prepared de novo after house to house enumeration in 1981 and which were intensively revised in all the 294 assembly constituencies were finally published with the supplements on December 31, 1981. On January 1, 1982 the finally published electoral rolls with the supplements were published in draft in the respective polling areas, Claims and objections were specifically invited in the prescribed forms under the law. It was further alleged that the petitioners were espousing the cause of unnamed and undisclosed persons through a writ petition, which does not claim to possess a representative capacity and that the upshot of the petition is that some three crores of voters were being deprived of an opportunity to exercise their franchise in order that so investigation should be made as to whether the names of some 5 lakhs persons should be included in or excluded from the electoral roll.