Service discipline and electoral disqualification are distinct; a service rule did not void candidature, and declaration of election was refused.

A service regulation barring an employee from taking part in elections was treated as a disciplinary rule, not an electoral disqualification, because it operated under the employer's service framework and was enforceable through penalties rather than by voiding candidature. On that footing, the municipal election was not invalidated. A defeated candidate also could not be declared elected merely because the returned candidate was found not to have been disqualified; the election statute required judicial discretion and did not make such a declaration automatic absent material showing that the result must have been different. The returned candidate's election was therefore upheld, and the claim for declaration of election failed.

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Issues: (i) Whether Regulation 25(4) of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (Staff) Regulations, 1960, read with Section 15(g) of the City of Nagpur Corporation Act, 1948, creates an electoral disqualification or merely a disciplinary prohibition; (ii) whether the defeated candidate could be declared elected under Section 428(2) of the City of Nagpur Corporation Act, 1948.

Issue (i): Whether Regulation 25(4) of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (Staff) Regulations, 1960, read with Section 15(g) of the City of Nagpur Corporation Act, 1948, creates an electoral disqualification or merely a disciplinary prohibition.

Analysis: The majority held that Section 15(g) operates only when some law in force renders a person ineligible to be a member of a local authority, and that Regulation 25(4) is a service rule framed under the Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956 to regulate employee conduct and discipline. The prohibition against taking part in elections was treated as a norm of service discipline enforceable through penalties under Regulation 39, not as an election-law disqualification. The permission proviso reinforced that the provision was not a fixed electoral bar.

Conclusion: Regulation 25(4) did not make the employee ineligible to contest the municipal election, and the election was not vitiated on that ground.

Issue (ii): Whether the defeated candidate could be declared elected under Section 428(2) of the City of Nagpur Corporation Act, 1948.

Analysis: The provision authorises a declaration in favour of the candidate securing the next highest valid votes only where no cause or objection exists against that candidate's election. Since the statute gives the court a discretion to refuse such declaration, and there was no material showing that the voters would necessarily have chosen the defeated candidate had the disqualification been known, the declaration could not automatically follow.

Conclusion: The defeated candidate was not entitled to be declared elected.

Concurring Opinion: R.S. Pathak, J. agreed with the majority that Regulation 25(4) is a service-discipline provision and not an electoral disqualification, and that the defeated candidate could not claim a declaration of election under Section 428(2).

Dissenting Opinion: V. Tulzapurkar, J. held that Regulation 25(4), when read with Section 15(g), does create a disqualification or ineligibility, and therefore both appeals should have been dismissed.

Final Conclusion: The returned candidate's election was upheld, but the claim for a declaration in favour of the defeated candidate failed.

Ratio Decidendi: A service regulation prohibiting an employee from contesting elections, though enforceable disciplinarily, does not by itself create an electoral disqualification unless the election law expressly treats it as such; and a declaration in favour of the next highest candidate is not automatic under the election statute.

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