R K Chandra Vs the State of Karnataka — Writ and Judicial Review | Karnataka HC (2025)

R K Chandra Vs the State of Karnataka — Writ and Judicial Review | Karnataka HC (2025)

What the court decided

AI extract

Outcome

No substantive relief; writ petition disposed of with observations — prayer to postpone the election rejected with liberty under Section 70(1)(c) of the Karnataka Co-operative Societies Act, 1959, and liberty reserved to file a revision under Section 4-F before the Deputy Commissioner regarding the caste question.

Issue for consideration

Whether the Court should direct respondent No.3 (Returning Officer) to postpone the election of the society scheduled on 13.02.2025 and direct respondent No.4 to issue a fresh calendar of events. +1 more

Court's answer

Once the election process is underway, neither the Court nor any authority can interfere with or stall the election process; where a statute provides a remedy to challenge the outcome of an election or illegality committed during it, the extraordinary remedy under Article 226 should not ordinarily be exercised (following N.P. Ponnuswami, (1952) 1 SCC 94).

Ratio / Principle

Prayer No.1 seeking postponement of the election is rejected, with liberty reserved to the petitioners to raise a dispute before the appropriate authority under Section 70(1)(c) of the Karnataka Co-operative Societies Act, 1959, if so advised in accordance with law.

Key takeaways

On prayer No.2, the petitioner's representation at Annexure-B was not in accordance with the provisions of the Karnataka Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (Reservation of Appointment etc.) Act, 1990; liberty is reserved to file a revision under Section 4-F before the Deputy Commissioner, and if such a revision is filed, the appropriate authority is to consider it in accordance with law and pass orders as expeditiously as possible.ratio¶68

Detailed headnote1 paragraphs

Writ Petition No. 4245 of 2025 (CS-EL/M) under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, decided by the High Court of Karnataka at Bengaluru (K.S. Hemalekha, J.) on 13.02.2025. Four petitioners sought (i) a direction to the Returning Officer (R-3) to postpone the election of the Somwarpet Taluk Tribal People's Large Scale Multipurpose Co-operative Society scheduled on 13.02.2025 and a fresh calendar of events from the Society (R-4), and (ii) a mandamus to the District Caste Verification Committee (R-5) to expedite verification whether respondent No.11 (Arun Rao S.R.) belongs to the Scheduled Tribe category. Relying on N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer, Namakkal Constituency, (1952) 1 SCC 94, the Court held that once the election process is ongoing neither the Court nor any authority can interfere with or stall it, and the extraordinary remedy under Article 226 should not ordinarily be exercised where the statute provides a remedy to challenge election outcomes; prayer No.1 was rejected with liberty to raise a dispute under Section 70(1)(c) of the Karnataka Co-operative Societies Act, 1959. On the caste issue, noting the petitioner's Annexure-B representation was not in accordance with the Karnataka Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (Reservation of Appointment etc.) Act, 1990, the Court reserved liberty to file a revision under Section 4-F before the Deputy Commissioner, to be considered expeditiously. Writ petition disposed of.