P L D 1962 (W (PLP)

Dates of scrutiny 6th and 7th December 1959. Date for withdrawal of candidature 17th December 1959. Date on which the list of candidates was to be posted. 20th December 1959 to 9th January 1960. Dates of polling 26th December 19599 Date on which results were to be declared. 10th January 1960.

4. The actual date fixed for polling in the present case was the 5th of January 1960.

5. For the petitioner it was argued that the candidate must possess the qualification relating to age on the date when his nomination papers are filed, while for the respondent it was M contended that the date of presentation of nomination papers was S only a step in the process of election and that the relevant date was the date on which the election was completed. If a single B day before that date the candidate has attained the age of twenty‑five, he is qualified to stand for election. The respondent's argument was based largely on the judgment of a Division Bench in Irfan Akhtar Shah v. Election Tribunal District Shahpur (P L D 1961 Lah. 189). The finding of the Division Bench, which was stated in the judgment of Sajjad Ahmad, J. may conveniently reproduced here: ‑ "The term `election', in my opinion, as employed in para graph I of Part II of the Second Schedule of the Order means the completed process of the election comprising all the various steps including the declaration of the final result and its notification and it is the date of the completed process and not any previous stage which has to be taken into account for computing the age of a candidate on the 1st day of January preceding it."

6. We respectfully agree that an election is not complete until the entire election programme is over, but here we should state by way of qualification that the notification of the result is no part of the election programme as detailed in rule 4, sub-rule (3) of the Basic Democracies Election Rules, 1959. An C election ends with the declaration of the result, and since the Government does not fix any particular date for its notification, the date on which an election becomes complete will remain a matter of uncertainty if the notification of the result were also regarded as a part of the election.

7. But while we agree that the term "election" stands for the entire process which leads step by step to a certain result, we find it difficult to hold that the age of a candidate should be determined with reference to the final stage in the process. If election is a single process from the date of publi cation of the electoral roll to the date on which the result of the election is declared, like a chain with a number of links, then a date "preceding the election" will be a date preceding the first link in the chain and not a date preceding the last link ; for a date preceding the last link would be a date preceding the declaration of the result, and all other links in the chain of election would "precede" such date. In that case we would be defining the term "election" as "the publication of the result of the election".

8. An example which will explain our argument further may be drawn from the winter vacation of the High Court. This vacation begins on the 24th of December and ends on the 1st of January following. If for the purposes of recruitment to a certain post we require a candidate to be twenty‑five years of age before the winter vacation, no person who was twenty‑five years of age on the 28th December would be eligible.

9. We have considered rule 59 of the Basic Democracies Election Rules also; but we do not think this furnishes any additional ground in support of our argument. Under that rule "the Election Tribunal shall declare an election to be void if it is satisfied that‑‑ (a) . . . . . . . . . . (b) on the nomination day the returned candidate was not qualified for, or was disqualified from, being elected for the ward."

10. Prima facie, it would appear from this rule that if on the day of nomination the candidate was not twenty‑five years of age, he would not be qualified to stand. For his qualifications, however, we have to go back to the Second Schedule to the Basic Democracies Order, Part 11, paragraph 1, and to determine whether on the 1st January preceding the election the candidate had attained the age of twenty‑five years. In other words, rule 59 cannot override paragraph 1, Part II of the Second Schedule.

11. Our reply, therefore, is that the respondent in this case should have attained the age of twenty‑five years on the 1st of January 1959, not on the 1st January 1960. There will be no order as to costs. The case will go back to the Division Bench for a formal order on the assumption that no other question arises for decision. A. H. Reference answered.