Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 9 : Justice Tashi Rabstan of J&K High Court Jammu Wing today allowed the petition filed by Mohan Singh whose nomination paper had been rejected. This petition is to order dated 06.07.2013 issued by the Returning Officer, the Sainik Cooperative House Building Society Ltd, respondent No.2 herein, rejecting the nomination paper of petitioner for election to the Managing Committee of the Society. The facts, as averred in the writ petition, are that for conducting election to the Sainik Cooperative House Building Society Ltd., Jammu (hereinafter, for short, the Society), Registrar, Cooperative Societies, respondent No.2 herein, set in motion the electoral process and fixed the date for election as 15.07.2013, while respondent No.4 was appointed as Returning Officer for conducting the said election. It is averred that as the petitioner being a share holder and founder member of the Society was also eligible to contest the election, he also filed his nomination papers, but were rejected by respondent No.4 vide order impugned in terms of Rule 18(ff) of Jammu & Kashmir Co-operative Societies Rules, 2001 (hereinafter, for short, Rules of 2001). In response, the Respondents while maintaining their stand contended that the candidature of petitioner was rejected in terms of Rule 18(ff) read with Rule 25(i)(e) of the Rules of 2001, which provides that a person who has held the office of any Society for three years shall not be eligible for being re-elected or re-appointed as an office bearer until a period of three years has elapsed from the date of vacating his office as such officer. Since the petitioner had served as Joint Chairman of the Society from 2008 to 2012, his nomination papers have rightly been rejected. Further, it is contended that the election to the Society are now being conducted as per the amended Election Rules under SRO 236 of 2013. After hearing Sr. Adv KS Johal with Adv Arsh K Johal appearing for the petitioner whereas GA Meenakshi Bhutyal appearing for the state and Adv Rohit Verma appearing for the respondent, Justice Tashi Rabstan observed that on perusing the said, one could find that in place of sub-rule (1) (e) of rule 25, sub-rule (1) (c) of rule 25 has been inserted in Rule 18(ff) of the Rules of 2001 and Court is of the considered view that the impugned order has been issued without application of mind and, thus is arbitrary. In the given situation, the writ petition merits to be allowed as the impugned order does not stand the scrutiny of law.
Accordingly, the writ petition is allowed and the order dated 06.07.2013 issued by the Returning Officer, the Sainik Cooperative House Building Society Ltd is quashed, with a direction to the respondents to allow the petitioner to contest the election of the Society, if he is not otherwise ineligible. |
