THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.32933 of 2014 Dated: 05.11.2014 Between:
Sri Sannapu Rathaiah .. Petitioner and The State of Andhra Pradesh, Rep. by its Deputy Director of Fisheries, Jagannaikpur, Kakinada, and others.
.. Respondents Counsel for the petitioner: Mr. S. Ashok Anand Kumar Counsel for respondents 1&2: AGP for Fisheries The court made the following:
ORDER:
This writ petition is filed for a Mandamus to declare the action of respondent No.3 in issuing election notification dated 07.10.2014 for holding election to the managing committee of respondent No.4 society on 05.11.2014 as illegal and arbitrary.
I have heard Mr. S. Ashok Anand Kumar, learned counsel for the petitioner, and the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Fisheries and perused the record.
The petitioner is mainly aggrieved by the preparation of voters list. According to the petitioner, as against 79 valid members as per report dated 25.06.2011 of respondent No.4, the Election Officer has prepared final voters list with 188 members.
Under Section 37(2) of the A.P. Mutually Aided Co-operative Societies Act, 1995, if a person is aggrieved by any election held to a co-operative society, he is entitled to raise an election dispute before the Co- operative Tribunal constituted for this purpose.
I n Shri Sant Sadguru Janardan Swami (Moingiri Maharaj) Sahakari Dugdha Utpadak Sanstha and another v. State of Maharashtra and others, the Apex Court held that even the preparation of electoral roll being an intermediate stage in the process of election of the managing committee of a specified society and that the election process having been set in motion, the High Court should not stay the continuation of the election process even though there may be some alleged illegality or breach of rules while preparing the electoral roll.
In Writ Petition No.15905 of 2006 (Sri Manganellore Veeraraghavan v.
District Collector, Nellore, Nellore District and others), this Court held as under: “The ratio that could be culled out from the judicial precedents discussed above is that the word ‘election’ has a far wider connotation than mere final result of the election and it takes within its sweep the entire process of election commencing from the election notification till declaration of the results, that once the election process is commenced, individual interests should yield to larger public interest of completing the election process as per the schedule, relegating the party raising the disputes pertaining thereto to a properly constituted election petition and that no Court, including the High Court and the Supreme Court, can interfere even where the authority concerned passes erroneous orders except where such erroneous orders have the effect of impeding or hindering the process of election. In the light of these firmly established legal principles, this writ petition is not maintainable because acceptance of nomination of respondent No.5, even if illegal, has not hindered the process of election, but, it is a step to further the election by conducting poll. In this process, even if respondent No.3 has committed a patent illegality, the petitioner shall have to wait till the completion of the election before availing his remedy under Article 243-O(b) read with Section 233 of the Act by presenting an election petition before the authority concerned.”
The above-noted judgments have been followed in Dhulipalla Narendra Kumar v. A.P. Co-operative Tribunal, Vijayawada, Krishna District and others.
In the light of the above settled legal position, I am not inclined to entertain the writ petition for adjudication. The petitioner is relegated to the election dispute.
The writ petition is accordingly dismissed. As a sequel to the dismissal of the writ petition, W.P.M.P.No.41183 of 2014 shall stand disposed of as infructuous.
C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 5th November, 2014 IBL