TMI Blog1959 (9) TMI 71X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... respondent and his election agent had appointed a number of persons as the respondent's counting and polling agents at different centres and that the said persons were, at the material time, working as lambardars, and, therefore, the respondent was guilty of corrupt practice within the meaning of s. 123 of the Act. The respondent denied the material allegations made in the petition. On the pleadings as many as 12 issues were framed, and issues 3 and 8 were taken up for trial as preliminary issues. Issue 8, which is the only relevant issue for the present enquiry, reads; Is Lambardar a person in the service of Government or is it covered by any of the clauses of section 123(7) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 ? The Election Tribunal held against the respondent on both the preliminary issues. On issue 8 it held that a lambardar was a revenue officer and village accountant in the service of Government within the meaning of cl. (f) of sub-s. (7) of s. 123 of the Act. On the basis of the findings on the preliminary issues, the Tribunal directed that the remaining issues be set down for hearing. The respondent canvassed the correctness of that order ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ote) for the furtherance of the prospects of the candidate's election, from any person in the service of the Government and belonging to any of the following classes, namely : (f) revenue officers including village accountants, such as, patwaris, lekhpals, talatis, karnams and the like but excluding other village officers. Explanation - (1) In this section the expression agent includes an election agent, a polling agent and any person who is held to have acted as an agent in connection with the election with the consent of the candidate. (2) For the purposes of clause (7), a person shall be deemed to assist in the furtherance of the prospects of candidate's election if he acts as an election agent, or a polling agent, or a counting agent of that candidate. Under this section, so far as it is material to the present enquiry, a candidate cannot appoint a person as his election agent if such person is in the service of Government and is one of the officers governed by cl. (f) of sub-s. (7). A lambardar to be a disqualified officer should not only be in the service of Government but should be revenue officer within the meaning o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... (ii) Village Accountants : The second group of officers in cl. (f) of sub-s. (7) of s. 123 of the Act are the village accountants, such as, patwaris, lekhpals, talatis karnams and the like. A careful study of the functions of the enumerated officers discloses that they are only local equivalents of a patwari. Clause (f) itself supplies the dictionary to ascertain the meaning of the words village accountants. The phrase such as immediately following the words village accountants, and the phrase the like following the enumerated officers indicate that the examples are intended to provide a definition by illustration. To put it differently, the enumerated categories of officers and the like indicate precisely the content and connotation of the words village accounts. (iii) Other Village Officers : Other village officers are obviously village officers other than the village accountants. The point to be emphasized is that unlike in the case of revenue officers, who include officers whose jurisdiction is not confined to the respective villages alone, this category of officers are confined to those exercising jurisdiction within a village. It ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... sel for the appellant. Firstly, it is argued that the words village officers are used in abundant caution in view of the long list of officers enumerated in the earlier Act, lest the public might interpret the word like in such a way as to take in all the village officers who are not revenue officers. To accept this argument is to impute to the Legislature want of precision. The words revenue officers , in whatever sense they are used, cannot obviously comprehend officers who are not revenue officers, and in that situation there is no necessity to exclude such officers from the group of revenue officers. The Legislative device of exclusion is adopted only to exclude a part from the whole, which, but for the exclusion, continues to be part of it. This interpretation must be rejected as it involves the recognition of words which are surplusage.Nor has the alternative construction any higher merits. The genus, the argument proceeds, is the village accountants, and the exclusion is from the category of village accountants only. This construction suffers from two defects. Firstly, the village officers cannot be the species carved out of the genus village accountants , for the word ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... (f) it is essential that a person in the service of the Government must be a revenue officer or a village accountant, by whatever name such officer or village accountant may be described. The exclusion of every other village officer from the provisions of cl. (f) compels the conclusion that before this clause can apply to a Sarpanch of the Grama Panchayat under the Orissa Act it must be proved that he is either a revenue officer or a village accountant. It is contended that the said observations show that this Court interpreted the terms of cl. (f) in a manner different from that we have indicated. While we have held that the words such as etc. . . and the like are only descriptive of village accountants, the observations extracted above seems to suggest that the said words are descriptive of the composite expression revenue officers including village accountants . Even in that view, we do not think that that excluding clause refers to village accountants only and not to revenue officers. The learned Judges were concerned with a sarpanch, and they held that he was not a village officer. If he was not a village officer, he was not excluded from the category of reven ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... proprietorship and in tenancies. Some books call him 'village accountant, ' others 'village registrar'; but neither term is satisfactory. Synonymous with Patwari (in Northern India and the Central Provinces) is the name 'Karnam' in the South, and 'Kulkarni' in the West. In Vol. II of the said book, the learned author again describes a lambardar and a patwari in Punjab in the following terms, at p. 740 : In the Punjab, the headman is styled 'lambardar'. As many, if not most, villages have several sections, there are usually several 'lambardars', and thus the advantage of representation of many co-sharers by one man is to some extent lost. It is thought necessary, therefore, to have as agent for a number of representatives, a single chief headman, with whom it is easier to communicate, and who can be held responsible. Dealing with patwaris, the learned author says at p. 733 : This official is of the utmost importance to the system. On his being duly trained and being competent carefully to prepare the village records and statistics, really depends (in the last resort) the hope of diminishing ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... said Manual describes the particulars of the registers kept by a patwari. They are : (1) Area statement or milan rakba. (2) Kharif crop statement or jinswar. (3) Rabi crop statement or jinswar. (4) Revenue account or jama wasil baki. (5) Statement of transfers of rights of owners and occupancy tenants. (5-A) Statement of sales and mortgages of ownership of classes of land. (6) Statements of ownership, mortgages and revenue assignments. (7) Statements of cultivating occupancy. (8) Statement of rent paid by tenants-at-will. (9) Statement of agricultural stock. For better particulars of the respective duties of a village headman and a patwari, the provisions of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 (Act XVII of 1887), and the Rules made thereunder, particularly r. 20 thereof, and Chapter III of the Punjab Land Records Manual may conveniently be referred to. A comparative study of the respective duties of a village headman and a patwari brings out the distinction between the two, namely, that the former is not only an agent of the State in the village but also the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ear distinction between the two categories of officers, expressly included the one within the definition of revenue officers and excluded the other village officers from it, it would be unreasonable to construe the clause in such a way as to include the village headman in the category of village accountants. It would be doing violence to the language used in the clause; for, the words village accounts , as defined in the clause, have acquired a secondary meaning by convention and statute. It is said that there cannot be any logical basis for disqualifying a patwari and qualifying a headman in the matter of elections, for, the argument proceeds, a headman has greater influence on the electorate than a patwari. This Court is not concerned with the policy underlying the statute, but only with the expressed intention of the Parliament. Clause (f) of sub-s. (7) of s. 123 was amended by Act LVIII of 1958, and the amended clause runs as follows : S. 123(7). (f) : revenue officers, other than village revenue officers known as lambardars, malgujars, patels, deshmukhs, or by any other name, whose duty is to collect land revenue and who are remunerated by a share of, or c ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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