Ninau Singh vs State of Rajasthan

This writ petition is bound to succeed on a very short but surest point that the petitioner who has been unseated from the post of Chairman of the Bharatpur Kisan Kriya Vikraya Sahkari Samiti, Bharatpur, was never allowed an opportunity to show cauie nor heard, nor served with a notice showing the alleged disqualifications.

Obviously an elected citizen, holding an elected office can never he unseated without observing principles of natural justice. Further an opportunity of hearing against the alleged disqualifications is the basic principle of natural justice, so innovated by the Supreme Court in Mrs. Maneka Gandhi Vs. Union of India (UOI) and Another, make it incumbent upon any such authority, who wants to pass adverse order, to first allow an opportunity of hearing to the concerned party.

The principle of ''audi alteram partem'' which mandates that no one shall be condemned unheard, is part of the rules of natural justice. This principles is to be applied inrespective of the fact whether the statute in which the impugned order is passed provides for the same or not.

Their Lordships in (he Constitutional Bench, consisting of Beg, C.J. Chandrachud, Bhagwati, Krishna Iyer, Untwalia Murtaza and Kailesam justices observed "Natural justice is a great humanising principle intended to invest law with fairness and to secure justice and over the years it has grown into a widely pervasive rule affecting large areas of administrative action.

It would not be right to conclude that the audi alteram partem rule is excluded merely because the power to impound a passport might be frustrated, if prior notice and hearing were to be given to the person concerned before impounding his passport.

The present one is a case where elected Chairman has been deprived of the office without a fundamental compliance of these principles. We are shocked and surprised that this can happen in 1987, and whether the authority who passed the order was treating it as 1887 instead of 1987 looking too hundred years back.

The fact that this has happened for an elective office is still more shocking. It should be known that a person who holds an elected office, represents certain constituency and it is after the election process that he is given such responsibility. Depriving him from that is a case of double jeopardy.

We are of the opinion that this itself is sufficient to quash this order and we need not got into the other various objections which have been raised by Mr. Dhankar and it will always be open even after giving a fair, reasonable and proper opportunity, which we hope would not happen unless the opportunity is given in a detached manner and objective view is taken rather than subjective view. The present case is of malafides where the petitioner who was to cast his vote in the elections as a voter has been deprived of that and election process was sought to be rigged, which makes the situation worse. We feel that the words, which we have used are not strong enough to deal with the present situation.

In election process, fainess is the bedrock and it alone preserves democratic traditions. In this case it has been the principal casuality. It is a case in which malice and malafide approach is writ large. We are shocked that the State functionaries acted in a malafide and partisan manner to assist the other party in the election.

The impugned order dated 1-12-1987 is hereby set aside and the petitioner would continue on the post of Chairman, Kisan Kriya Vikraya Sahkari Samiti, Bharatpur.

The writ petition is accepted with costs.