Bombay High Court
Prasad Anil Sonawane vs State Of Maharashtra Thru. Gp And Ors on 25 November, 2025
2025:BHC-AS:51409-DB
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
WRIT PETITION NO.15723 OF 2025
Prasad Anil Sonawane, ]
R/o. Sambhaji Chowk, Chandwad, ]
Tal. Chandwad, Dist. Nashik ] .. Petitioner
Versus
1. State of Maharashtra, ]
Through the Government Pleader, ]
High Court, Bombay ]
2. The Secretary, ]
State Election Commission, Maharashtra ]
3. The Commissioner, ]
State Election Commission, Maharashtra ]
4. The Deputy Commissioner, ]
State Election Commission, Maharashtra ]
5. The Returning Officer/Tehsildar, ]
Chandwad, Dist. Nashik ] .. Respondents
Mr. Ranji G. Jadhav, Advocate for the Petitioners.
Mrs. Neha S. Bhide, Government Pleader with Mr. O.A.
Chandurkar, Additional Government Pleader and Mrs. Pooja Patil,
Assistant Government Pleader for Respondent Nos.1 and 5.
Mr. Sachindra Shetye with Mr. Nipun Sawane, Ms. Dhanashri
Mondkar and Ms. Vrushali Shivgan, Advocates for the
Respondent-State Election Commission.
CORAM : SHREE CHANDRASHEKHAR, CJ. &
GAUTAM A. ANKHAD, J.
DATE : 25TH NOVEMBER 2025.
PER, GAUTAM A. ANKHAD, J.
The petitioner has filed this writ petition assailing the
rejection of his nomination form by the returning officer-
respondent no.5 in the forthcoming Nagar Panchayat elections
and seeks the following reliefs:
"A. This Civil Writ Petition may kindly be allowed.
B. By issuing a writ of mandamus or any other writ of like
nature, it may kindly be held and declared that the letter
dated 18.11.2025 issued by the Deputy Commissioner, State
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Election Commission cannot be made applicable to the
nomination forms that are filled before hand i.e. prior to
17.11.2025 and specifically to nomination form dated
16.11.2025 filed and submitted by the petitioner before
respondent no.5.
C. This Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to quash the order
dated 18.11.2025 passed by the respondent no.5/Returning
Officer whereby the petitioner is declared as disqualified to
contest the Chandwad Nagarparishad Election 2025 solely
for the reason of lack of five supporting proposers since the
same is passed in consequence to letter dated 18.11.2025
which is arbitrary, unjust and bad in law.
D. That during the pendency of this present writ petition,
retrospective effect and application of letter dated 18.11.2025
issued by the Deputy Commissioner, State Election
Commission, Maharashtra may kindly be stayed."
2. The petitioner filed the A-B Form as an optional candidate
in the nomination form of Mr. Vilas Madhukar Pawar. The
nomination was submitted on 16 th November 2025 and at that
time, in accordance with the prevailing rules, both Mr. Pawar and
the petitioner were supported by the signature of one proposer.
The learned counsel for the petitioner states that on 18 th
November 2025, the main candidate, namely, Mr. Pawar decided
to withdraw his nomination for personal reasons. Following this
withdrawal, the petitioner approached respondent no.5 seeking
consideration of his own nomination. Mr. Jadhav contends that
the petitioner's nomination has been wrongly rejected, resulting in
his disqualification from contesting the elections solely on the
ground that his nomination lacked the signatures of five
proposers. He submits that this rejection is arbitrary and that
respondent no.4 could not have issued the letter dated 18 th
November 2025 once the nomination forms had already been
submitted before the returning officer. He further submits that the
rules cannot be altered or applied retrospectively to the
petitioner's detriment, and therefore, the petition deserves to be
allowed. He relied upon the judgment of this Court in "Suleman
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Fakruddin Ansari v. S.B. Kulkarni & Anr.", 1963 Mh.L.J. 351 in
support of submissions.
3. We have heard the learned counsels for the parties and find
no merit in this petition. Mr. Sachindra Shetye, the learned
counsel for the State Election Commission submits that the
petitioner availed of the statutory remedy and that order is not
under challenge. It is settled law that a right to contest an election
is neither a fundamental right nor a common law right. In
"Vishwanath Pratap Singh vs. Election Commission of India", 2022
SCC Online SC 2213, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has held as
follows:
5. We find that the writ petition before the High Court was entirely
misconceived and so is the present special leave petition. The right to
contest an election is neither a fundamental right nor a common law right.
It is a right conferred by a statute. In Javed v. State of Haryana, (2003) 8
SCC 369, this Court held that:--
"22. Right to contest an election is neither a fundamental right nor a
common law right. It is a right conferred by a statute. At the most, in view
of Part IX having been added in the Constitution, a right to contest
election for an office in Panchayat may be said to be a constitutional right
-- a right originating in the Constitution and given shape by a statute.
But even so, it cannot be equated with a fundamental right. There is
nothing wrong in the same statute which confers the right to contest an
election also to provide for the necessary qualifications without which a
person cannot offer his candidature for an elective office and also to
provide for disqualifications which would disable a person from
contesting for, or holding, an elective statutory office.
4. In "Jyoti Basu v. Debi Ghosal", (1982) 1 SCC 691, the
Hon'ble Supreme Court held as follows:
8. A right to elect, fundamental though it is to democracy, is,
anomalously enough, neither a fundamental right nor a common law
right. It is pure and simple, a statutory right. So is the right to be elected.
So is the right to dispute an election. Outside of statute, there is no right
to elect, no right to be elected and no right to dispute an election.
Statutory creations they are, and therefore, subject to statutory limitation.
An election petition is not an action at common law, nor in equity. It is a
statutory proceeding to which neither the common law nor the principles
of equity apply but only those rules which the statute makes and applies.
It is a special jurisdiction, and a special jurisdiction has always to be
exercised in accordance with the statute creating it. Concepts familiar to
common law and equity must remain strangers to election law unless
statutorily embodied. A court has no right to resort to them on
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considerations of alleged policy because policy in such matters as those,
relating to the trial of election disputes, is what the statute lays down. In
the trial of election disputes, court is put in a straight-jacket. Thus the
entire election process commencing from the issuance of the notification
calling upon a constituency to elect a member or members right up to the
final resolution of the dispute, if any, concerning the election is regulated
by the Representation of the People Act, 1951, different stages of the
process being dealt with by different provisions of the Act. There can be
no election to Parliament or the State Legislature except as provided by
the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and again, no such election
may be questioned except in the manner provided by the Representation
of the People Act. So the Representation of the People Act has been held
to be a complete and self-contained code within which must be found any
rights claimed in relation to an election or an election dispute. We are
concerned with an election dispute. The question is who are parties to an
election dispute and who may be impleaded as parties to an election
petition. We have already referred to the scheme of the Act. We have
noticed the necessity to rid ourselves of notions based on common law or
equity. We see that we must seek an answer to the question within the
four corners of the statute. What does the Act say?
5. In "N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer, Namakkal
Constituency", (1952) 1 SCC 94, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held
that:
"24. It may be pointed out that Article 329(b) must be read as
complementary to clause (a) of that article. Clause (a) bars the jurisdiction
of the courts with regard to such law as may be made under Articles 327
and 328 relating to the delimitation of constituencies or the allotment of
seats to such constituencies. It was conceded before us that Article 329(b)
ousts the jurisdiction of the courts with regard to matters arising between
the commencement of the polling and the final selection. The question
which has to be asked is what conceivable reason the legislature could
have had to leave only matters connected with nominations subject to the
jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. If Part
XV of the Constitution is a code by itself i.e. it creates rights and provides
for their enforcement by a Special Tribunal to the exclusion of all courts
including the High Court, there can be no reason for assuming that the
Constitution left one small part of the election process to be made the
subject-matter of contest before the High Courts and thereby upset the
time schedule of the elections. The more reasonable view seems to be that
Article 329 covers all "electoral matters".
25. The conclusions which I have arrived at may be summed up briefly as
follows:
(1) Having regard to the important functions which the legislatures
have to perform in democratic countries, it has always been
recognised to be a matter of first importance that elections should
be concluded as early as possible according to time schedule and
all controversial matters and all disputes arising out of elections
should be postponed till after the elections are over, so that the
election proceedings may not be unduly retarded or protracted.
(2) In conformity with this principle, the scheme of the election law
in this country as well as in England is that no significance should
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be attached to anything which does not affect the "election"; and if
any irregularities are committed while it is in progress and they
belong to the category or class which, under the law by which
elections are governed, would have the effect of vitiating the
"election" and enable the person affected to call it in question, they
should be brought up before a Special Tribunal by means of an
election petition and not be made the subject of a dispute before
any court while the election is in progress."
6. From the law enunciated in the above judgments, it is clear
that once the election process has commenced, the writ court will
not interfere in the matter. It is always open to the aggrieved
party, to challenge the same by filing an election petition and seek
appropriate relief in accordance with law. The petitioner's reliance
on the judgment in "Suleman Ansari" is misplaced. In that case,
the applicant did not sign his nomination papers and yet his
application was accepted by the commissioner/returning officer.
This acceptance by the commissioner was set aside by the
Division Bench of this Court. The judgment has no application to
the facts of this case.
7. In the present case, the election programme began on 5 th
November 2025. On 18th November 2025, the State Election
Commission clarified that a dummy/ optional candidate who
submits a nomination supported by only one proposer is not
eligible, and such nomination is liable to be rejected. It records
that the optional candidate (like the petitioner) must submit a
nomination form supported by five proposers to qualify. In our
view, considering the above law, the election process cannot be
interdicted at this stage by exercising our writ jurisdiction. We
cannot interfere with this process at the petitioner's instance,
which is otherwise applicable to all other candidates contesting
the Nagar Panchayat elections. Further, Mr. Vilas Pawar, who
purportedly wants to withdraw from the elections is not a party to
this petition. There is no explanation from the petitioner's counsel
for this absence. In his absence, the statement made by the
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learned counsel for the petitioner that Mr. Vilas Pawar wants to
withdraw his nomination cannot be verified.
8. For the aforesaid reasons, Writ Petition No. 15723 of 2025
stands dismissed.
[ GAUTAM A. ANKHAD, J. ] [ CHIEF JUSTICE ]
BHARAT
DASHARATH
PANDIT
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