P L D 1957 (W (PLP)

KAYANI, J.‑

In this writ petition Ch. Salah‑ud‑Din, M. L. A. and a member of the District Board of Gujranwala, seeks to avoid the election of Haji Ghulam Muhammad Cheema, respondent No. 1, as Vice‑Chairman of the aforesaid District Board. Respondent No. 2 is the Deputy Commis sioner of Gujranwala, and the relief sought against him is that he should be directed to convene a meeting of the Board to elect a Chairman and a Vice‑Chairman in accordance with law. Respondent No. 3, Ch. Nabi Ahmad, is another member of the District Board and conducted the election of the Vice‑Chairman in his capacity as Chairman. It is against his conduct as Chairman that the petitioner seeks relief. The term of the District Board of Gujranwala having expired on the 21st of March 1957, was extended by the Government for a period of six months. It had began on the 22nd of March 1954. On the same day one Sayyed Zulfiqar Ali Shah had been elected Vice‑Chairman and Ch. Nabi Ahmad, respondent No. 3, had been elected Chairman. Rule 46 sub‑rule (2) of the District Board Election Rules, 1952, requires that "in the case of the election of a Chairman, the person elected shall assume office from the date or publication in the Gazette of the result of the election ". Sub‑rule (3) requires that the person elected as Vice Chairman shall assume office from the date of election. thus, the Vice‑Chairman, Sayyed Zulfiqar Ali Shah, assumed office on the 22nd of March 1154, the date of his election, while Ch. Nabi Ahmad, respondent No. 3, assumed office from the date of publication of the result of his election on the 23rd of April 1954. Under sub‑rule (4) of rule 46 the term of office of a Chairman shall expire " on the expiry of three years from the date on which he assumed office ". In this petition we are concerned with the term of office of Ch. Nabi Ahmad as Chairman, and the question is whether his term of three years expired on the 22nd or 23rd of April 1957. If it expired on the 22nd of April, then a meeting over which he presided on the 23rd of April as Chairman and which resulted in the election of Haji Ghulam Muhammad Cheema, respondent No. 1, as Vice‑Chairman would be invalid. That is the con tention of the petitioner. The petition says that the members of the Board are divided into two groups, one headed by respondent No. 3 and the other by the petitioner, and that respondent No. 1, the newly‑elected Vice‑Chairman, was a nominee of res pondent No.

3. There was to be a meeting on the 25th of March 1957 for the passing of the budget among other things, and another meeting on the 26th of March for the election of the Vice‑Chairman. The budget meeting failed and was adjourned to the 30th of March 1957. This appeared to be a trial of strength between the parties, and the Chairman, seeing the weakness of his position, pretended illness on the 26th of March and sent a message at 11 0'clock that the meeting for the election of, Vice‑Chairman be adjourned cine die. The majority of the members present, however, elected another from amongst them as Chairman and started transacting the business of the Board. When the item relating to the election of the Vice‑Chairman was taken up, the members were informed by the Secretary that respondent No. 3 had taken along with him the ballet papers bearing official marks placed thereon by the Deputy Commissioner. The election of the Vice‑Chairman was, therefore, postponed to the 30th of March 1957 at 10 a.m., an hour before the time fixed by the Chairman himself for the consideration of the budget. The Chairman, however, by a separate order adjourned both these meetings to the 23rd of April 1957. The agenda for that meeting had fifty‑seven items and the last related to the election of the Vice‑Chairman. On that day the petitioner and his party served a written notice on the Chairman that his term of office had expired on the preceding day and that he was not competent to preside over the meeting. Respondent No. 3, however, insisted on presiding and did so, and the very first item taken for consideration was the election of the Vice‑Chairman. What happened subsequently is an alleged story of hooliganism stated in annexure ` B ', but the result, so far as relevant to our purpose, is that respondent No. 3 declared respondent No. 1 as having been elected the Vice‑Chairman. If it is true that the term of office of Ch. Nabi Ahmad, respondent No. 3. had expired on the 22nd of April 1957, the meeting over which he presided on the 23rd of April was not in accordance with law, and we should hold that Haji Ghulam Muhammad Cheema, respondent No. 1, was not the Vice‑Chairman of the Board. Mr. Manzur Qadir argued that since a year other than a leap year consisted of 365 days, if it began on the 1st of January, it ended on the 31st of December, and if it began on the 23rd of April it ended on the 22nd of April next year. In other words, if Ch. Nabi Ahmad assumed the office of Chairman on the 23rd of April 1954, his three years' term ended on the 22nd of April 1957. Under rule 46 sub‑rule (2) the Chairman assumes office " from the date of publication in the Gazette of the result of the election ". The result was published on the 23rd of April 1954. It is clear from the language of sub‑rule (2) that on the date of publication of the result he was to be regarded as Chairman. It is difficult to imagine that the word " from " used in this context is equivalent to " after ". It is like saying that from Monday next certain judges of the High Court will sit in Single Bench. In that context we do not mean that the actual sitting will take place not on Monday but on Tuesday. In ordinary parlance we do not see that a person assumes office " from a certain date. He assumes office " on " a certain date. Sub‑rule (2) of rule 46 should, therefore, be interpreted to mean that the Chairman assumed office on the date when his name was published in the Gazette. It would not be very intelligent to provide in the rule that the Chairman would assume office on the day following that on which his name was published. The manner in which the draftsman of the rules uses the word "from" may be determined from rule 4 also, which provides that " the term of office of a member of a Board shall be three years from the date of taking his seat ". This rule contemplates a day on which the member will take his seat and he is to hold office for a period of three years " from " this date. If the day on which he has taken his seat is to be excluded on the ground that " from " means " after ", then his term of office as a member will be three years and a day. This would violate the provisions of section 12 of the District Boards Act, accord ing to which the term of office of the members of a District Board shall be fixed by the Provincial Government by rules made under the Act, " but shall not exceed three years ". We have been referred by learned counsel on both sides 'to a number of cases and to Law Lexicons, and we can do nothing better than respectfully to endorse the opinion of Schwabe, Chief Justice, (in re‑Court Fees) (1) that "this may be deduced from a study of all the English Authorities, namely, that in every case the word "from" preceding a date may have one of two meanings, namely, on and after, that is including the named date, or merely after, that is excluding the named dates, and that it is necessary to look at the context and the circumstances of each case to arrive at the true construction ". Schwabe, C.J., went further to deduce two rules also from the English Authorities (A I R 1924 Mad. 257) that, if the named date is the beginning of a defined limited period, that is, where there is a terminus ad quem as well as a terminus a quo, when prima facie the first day is excluded, (2) that, if the named date is the beginning of an indefinite period then prima facie the first day is included. We do not think we should be guided in the inter pretation of this word by the General Clauses Act, because that Act applies to the phraseology used in other Acts and not in rules Section 9 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, thus provides that " in any Act it shall be sufficient, for the purpose of excluding the first in a series of days or any other period of time, to use the word ' from ', and, for the purpose of including the last in a series of days or ally other period of time to use the word ' to'. This provision in the General Clauses Act only means that when computing time the draftsman of an Act should be conscious of the fact that by the use of the word " from " he ex cludes the first day and by the use of the word " to " he excluded (sic) the last day. Where the language is not that of an Act, we must be guided by general principles. We have no hesitation in holding that in the context of rule 46 sub‑rule (2) the Chairman's term of office should include the 23rd of April 1954. On the 23rd of April 1957, therefore, he was not the Chairman. Mr. Jamil Husain Rizvi contended for the respondents that even if Ch. Nabi Ahmad respondent No. 3, was n not the proper Chairman on the 23rd of April 1957 the meeting over which he presided was not vitiated, and he relied for this contention on rule 5 sub‑rule (3). This provides that the Deputy Commissioner may, in the absence or illness both of the Chairman and of the Vice Chairman, or, if the offices of Chairman and Vice‑Chairman are vacant, convene a meeting of the Board and the members present thereat shall elect a member as Chairman of the meeting and may transact any business at such meeting, which shall be deemed to be a validly convened meeting of the Board. What was necessary; according to him, was that after a meeting had been convened properly, the members present should elect one of them to be a Chairman of the meeting. It is quite true that the meeting was properly convened by Ch. Nabi Ahmad when he was Chairman. On the date of the meeting, however, he was not the Chairman and the members did not proceed to elect a Chairman. Even when an objection was taken by the petitioner and his party it was not heeded. The objection was exactly to the effect that since the Chairman's term had expired, the members should proceed to elect a Chairman for the meeting, and if this had been done, the meeting would have been lawful. Finally, we were referred to Selva v. Aravamudha (A I R 1953 Mad. 969) where the Election Commissioner having declared the election of a Municipal Vice‑Chairman void on the ground that the meeting for holding the election had not been properly convened, the High Court of Madras issued a writ of certiorari quashing the proceedings on the ground that the election could be avoided only if the illegality had materially affected the result of the election. The question whether the High Court could, in the exercise of writ jurisdiction, hold that the meeting itself was illegal does not appear to have been argued before the learned judge. In any case, with proper respect to the learned judge, we are of the opinion that if the very fundamental of the election disappears, the election itself would also be avoided. The question whether the result of the election was materially affected by any circumstance known to the Election law as cognizable is a matter which an Election Commissioner should decide. In the present jurisdiction we only decide and can f: decide, whether any illegality has been committed. We hold that the meeting was invalid by reason of a wrong person presiding over it and that, consequently, the election was void. We direct the Deputy Commissioner to convene a meeting under rule 5 sub‑rule (3) of the District Board Election Rules, 1952, to enable the members to elect a Chairman of the meeting for the purpose of electing a Vice -Chairman. The petition is accepted with costs. A. H. Petition accepted.