1933 (8) TMI 8

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....nor is there anything in the record to show how he was interested in the matter. So far as he was concerned, the application was clearly incompetent. Venkatanarasimham, whom I shall call the Petitioner, intended to stand for an election to the Taluk Board of Kavali and the District Board of Nellore. Under the rules made by the Government for the preparation of electoral rolls for Local Boards in accordance with the provisions of the Madras Local Boards Act an officer called the District Election Officer was in September and October, 1932, engaged in preparing the electoral roll for the Kavali Taluk. Under Section 52 of the Act one of the qualifications for the right of voting at a Taluk Board or a District Board election is holding land on ....

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....y that circular and that the Deputy Inspector of Municipal Councils and Local Boards, who was the authority to dispose of the Petitioner's appeals, would also be influenced by that circular, which the Petitioner alleged was ultra vires. The circular was issued by the Inspector of Municipal Councils and Local Boards, who was made Respondent to the Petitioner's application now under appeal, and was issued from his office in Madras on the 2nd January, 1932. It is headed "Subject: Electoral Rolls--Preparation of--Admissibility of claims received late--Instructions issued," and runs: The District Election Officers, Chingleput, Kistna and West Godavari have raised the following question for orders: (1) Whether any inquiry shou....

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....owever, the conclusion of the learned Judge's judgement was "The application accordingly succeeds"; and on that judgment an order was drawn up and issued from this Court to the following effect: It is ordered as follows: (1) That the Inspector of Municipal Councils and Local Boards, Mount Road, Madras, the Respondent herein, his servants and agents be restrained by an injunction from interfering in future with the powers of Election Officers and appellate tribunals therefrom to deal with claims and objections presented before them according to law, by his circular No. 13, dated the 2nd day of January, 1932, in its present directory form. 4. Against that order the Inspector has appealed. 5. It is not disputed befo....

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....quite ready to accept the assurance of the Inspector that by his circular he had no intention whatever of doing anything so outrageous as to shut out any evidence, which any party interested might wish to lay before the District Election Officers, or to tie the hands of the District Election Officers or the appellate authorities in the exercise of their judicial functions. And we have been informed by the learned Advocate-General that since Stone, J.'s order was made the Inspector has withdrawn the circular in question. In that I may say that in my opinion the Inspector was well advised. 6. However, that does not dispose of the Inspector's appeal against the learned Judge's order. In my opinion, without discussing every possi....

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....s or of those three appellate officers who exercise their functions in the mufassal, however laudable, would obviously be to transgress the jurisdiction given to this Court under Section 45 of the Specific Relief Act. 7. Secondly, no order can be made under that section if the applicant has other specific and adequate legal remedy. The Petitioner, as I understand the position, was aggrieved because his objections to entries in the electoral roll had been overruled by the District Election Officer, and against that grievance the law had provided him with a specific remedy. Mr. Swaminatha Aiyar, who appears for the Petitioner, has suggested before us that that was not the Petitioner's grievance, that his grievance was, not that his obj....

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.... decision the law had provided him with a specific remedy, a right of appeal, and that right of appeal he had exercised. Mr. Swaminatha Aiyar suggests that on account of this circular, which had been issued by the Inspector, he was afraid that that right of appeal might not be of any use to him: in fact, the Petitioner was quite sure that his appeals were going to be decided against him. But the words of Clause (a) of Section 45 of the Specific Relief Act are "provided that the applicant has no other specific and adequate legal remedy". There is nothing about a remedy which the applicant believes will be efficacious or a remedy by which the applicant expects to get what he wants. If the remedy is there, as the right of appeal was there in t....