Where, in any proceedings, it is shown to the court by such evidence as seems to the court sufficient-

(a) that any act or omission of a candidate at any election, or of his election agent or of any other agent or person, would, by reason of being the payment of a sum or the incurring of expense in excess of any maximum amount allowed by this Ordinance, or of being a payment, engagement, employment, or contract in contravention of this Ordinance, or of otherwise being in contravention of any of the provisions of this Ordinance, be but for this article an illegal practice; and

(b) that any such act or omission arose from inadvertence or from accidental miscalculation or from some other reasonable cause of a like nature, and in any case, did not arise from any want of good faith, and under the circumstances it seems to the court, after giving the Attorney General an opportunity of being heard, to be just that the candidate at the said election and other agent and person or any of them, should not be subject to any of the consequences under this Ordinance, the court may allow such act or omission to be an exception from the provisions of this Ordinance which would otherwise make the same an illegal practice, and thereupon such candidate, agent, or person shall not be subject to any of the consequences under this Ordinance of the said act or omission.