Election timetable amendment upheld under general statutory power despite challenge to altered dates and non-joinder objections.

An election challenge was examined on three points: non-joinder of successful candidates, the effect of a later notification changing some election dates, and whether the change offended the election regulations. The court noted that the petition targeted the election process and the Council's statutory action, so absence of impleadment of each returned candidate did not warrant dismissal. It also held that a deliberate re-fixation of dates could not be treated as an accidental irregularity under the saving regulation. However, the later notification was upheld as a valid amendment under Section 21 of the General Clauses Act, and not as a breach of the regulatory scheme. The election challenge therefore failed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the election petition and writ petition were liable to be dismissed for non-joinder of the successful candidates as necessary parties; (ii) Whether the Tribunal was justified in treating the alteration of the election timetable by the later notification as an accidental irregularity saved by Regulation 87T; (iii) Whether the later notification altering some election dates was without authority or contrary to Regulation 59, including in the light of Section 21 of the General Clauses Act.

Issue (i): Whether the election petition and writ petition were liable to be dismissed for non-joinder of the successful candidates as necessary parties.

Analysis: The relief was directed against the election process and the statutory action of the Council, not against any individual returned candidate on personal grounds. The election petition was presented before the Council in the manner contemplated by the statutory scheme, and the Council's role in forwarding the petition provided sufficient notice to the elected members. In that setting, the absence of impleadment of each successful candidate did not defeat the proceedings, and no breach of natural justice was made out.

Conclusion: The petition was not liable to be dismissed for non-joinder of parties.

Issue (ii): Whether the Tribunal was justified in treating the alteration of the election timetable by the later notification as an accidental irregularity saved by Regulation 87T.

Analysis: Regulation 87T was concerned with accidental irregularity or omission in the conduct of the election, not with a conscious and deliberate re-fixation of dates by the Council. The postal strike may have been the occasion for the change, but the issuance of the later notification was an intended administrative act taken after considering representations. That action could not be characterised as an accidental omission or irregularity within the meaning of the saving provision.

Conclusion: The Tribunal was not right in upholding the later notification under Regulation 87T.

Issue (iii): Whether the later notification altering some election dates was without authority or contrary to Regulation 59, including in the light of Section 21 of the General Clauses Act.

Analysis: Regulation 59 was construed as requiring the original election notification to fix the principal election stages ninety days before expiry of the Council's term, while clause (g) was not read as authorising alteration of already notified dates. However, the power to alter or amend the notification was held to be available under Section 21 of the General Clauses Act. The later notification, though issued only for some stages, was treated as an amendment incorporating the altered dates into the original notification, and thus no substantive violation of the statutory scheme was established.

Conclusion: The later notification was upheld as a valid exercise of power and not contrary to the regulations.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the election failed, because neither the preliminary objection nor the substantive attack on the altered election timetable justified interference with the Tribunal's dismissal of the election petition.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statutory authority has power under the general law to amend or alter a notified timetable, a later notification modifying only some dates can be treated as incorporated into the original notification, and such modification is not invalid merely because it is not a fresh comprehensive re-notification.

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