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Nitin Bandopant Salagre v. The State Election Commission & Anr. (and connected appeals)

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 859Decided 5 Aug 2019
Civil Appeal No. 5855 of 2019
Justice Ashok Bhushan · Justice Navin Sinha

Background

A Mumbai municipal councillor was disqualified after her caste certificate (needed for a reserved-category seat) was invalidated. The appellants, who had secured the second-highest votes in their respective wards, argued they should be declared elected to fill the resulting casual vacancies rather than the State Election Commission calling fresh by-elections. The Bombay High Court had dismissed their writ petitions and upheld the Commission's approach of holding fresh by-elections. Four connected appeals raising the same legal question were heard and decided together.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the appeals and set aside the High Court's judgment, holding that the State Election Commission, before deciding to hold by-elections to fill a casual vacancy, must first apply its mind to Section 34 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, which prescribes how casual vacancies are to be filled, and must take into account factors such as a pending election petition that already seeks a declaration that the runner-up should be deemed elected. Since there was no evidence on record that the Commission had actually considered Section 34 before proceeding toward by-elections, the Court directed the Commission to take a fresh decision on how to fill the vacancies, properly considering these factors, before issuing any notification for a by-election.

Lesson Learnt

Election authorities cannot default to the most familiar option (a fresh by-election) without first properly considering the specific statutory procedure that governs how a particular type of vacancy must be filled: a court can step in to insist on a correctly reasoned decision even while leaving the final administrative choice to the authority itself.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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