Non-Voting Municipal Nominees Don’t Count Toward Two-Thirds Needed To Remove Chair Or Vice-Chair Under Rajasthan’s 1974 Rules: HC Full Bench

A no-confidence motion against the Vice-Chairman of the Municipal Board, Mangrole, was carried on 13 September 2001.

On revision, the State Government set it aside, holding that nominated members had to be included when calculating the two-thirds majority under the Rajasthan Municipalities (Motion of No Confidence against Chairman or Vice-Chairman) Rules, 1974.

The appellants’ writ petitions challenging that decision were dismissed by a Single Judge, and they appealed.

A Division Bench referred the question of whether nominated members were included in the denominator to a Full Bench, in light of a disagreement with Prem Raj Bohra.

Article 243R(2)(a)(i) of the Constitution permits State legislation to provide for nominated municipal members with special knowledge or experience, but its proviso denies those members the right to vote in municipal meetings.

The Full Bench applied Ramesh Mehta v. Sanwal Chand Singhvi, (2004) 5 SCC 409, which construed the Rajasthan Act and the 1974 Rules and held that “whole number” or “total number” for a no-confidence motion refers to members entitled to vote; nominated members without voting rights are excluded.

It distinguished Raees Ahmad v. State of U.P., (2000) 1 SCC 432, as concerning a different statutory scheme in which the Chairman was directly elected.

The Court also noted that the later Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 2009 and the 2007 Rules expressly exclude nominated members from voting or eligibility, respectively.

Because the reference concerned the Rajasthan statutory scheme and the 1974 Rules, the Full Bench treated Ramesh Mehta—which directly construed those provisions—as governing.

Under that decision, the denominator for the requisite majority comprises members entitled to vote.

Since nominated members had no voting right under the constitutional and statutory scheme, they could not be counted when calculating the two-thirds majority.

Raees Ahmad did not alter that conclusion because it arose under a different Act and election arrangement.

It held that Prem Raj Bohra was correctly decided on that point.

Since the no-confidence motion had occurred in 2001, the appeals were disposed of as infructuous, with each party bearing its own costs.