Kartar Singh,Ex.Sarpanch v. The State of Punjab & Anr.

Coram: Hon'ble Mr.Justice Rajan Gupta Present: Mr. Vineet Soni, Advocate for the petitioner. Ms. Sudeepti Sharma, DAG, Punjab for the respondents. ... Rajan Gupta,J.(Oral) This is a petition wherein challenge has been made to order Annexure P-2 passed by the Joint Director, Panchayats, Punjab, Chandigarh under Section 105(5) of the Gram Panchayat Act, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) whereby he accepted the revision preferred by the Gram Panchayat Chahar and set aside the order Annexure P-1 passed by the District Development and Panchayat Officer, Sangrur, thus holding the petitioner liable for recovery of Rs. 6878/- for having caused loss to the gram panchayat by auctioning the shamlat land in August 1983 at lesser price. Brief factual background of the case is that auction for giving CWP No. 11187 of 1988 2 shamlat land on lease took place in village Chahar on 19.8.1983(wrongly stated as 19.8.1984 in the petition and annexures thereto as pointed out by Mr. Vineet Soni, Advocate at the outset). From this auction, an amount of Rs. 14,620/- was fetched as lease money . However, election to the Gram Panchayat took place in the end of September, 1983 and a person from the rival faction is stated to have been elected as Sarpanch. On 23.5.1984, Block Development and Panchayat Officer, Sunam filed an application before the District Development and Panchayat Officer for cancellation of auction which took place on 19.8.1983. This application was however, dismissed by the District Development and Panchayat Officer. Later on exercising his powers under Section 5 of the Gram Panchayat Act, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), the Block Development and Panchayat Officer assessed the loss caused to the Gram Panchayat as Rs. 6878/-. Thus an amount of Rs.6878/- was sought to be recovered from the petitioner. This order was passed on 8.8.1985. The petitioner preferred an appeal against this order before the District Development and Panchayat Officer, Sangrur while acting as Appellate Authority under the Act. The appellate authority after hearing both the parties came to the conclusion that auction was done in the village according to rules. Moreover,the Gram Panchayat was in need of money at that time and auction was in the interest of the village considering development work to be carried out in village. The DDPO thus came to the conclusion that no loss had been caused to the panchayat due to auction as amount collected thereby had been spent on renovation of school building. CWP No. 11187 of 1988 3 The order dated 8.8.1985 was thus set aside. The Gram Panchayat preferred a revision against this order before the Joint Director, Panchayat, Punjab, Chandigarh(exercising the powers of Government). The Joint Director accepted the revision petition preferred by the panchayat and held that auction was not done in accordance with the rules as “Munadi” was not resorted to. Moreover, the amount which was received in the auction was lesser than the previous year. He thus, held the petitioner- Sarpanch responsible for this and held him liable for payment of Rs. 6878/- as the loss caused to the panchayat. Aggrieved by this order, the present petition has been preferred before this court. Learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that the revisional authority completely misdirected itself while coming to the conclusion that Munadi was not done in accordance with the rules. According to him, there was no material before the Revisional Authority to arrive at this conclusion. He has further submitted that revisional authority had ignored from consideration the fact that Gram Panchayat needed money badly at the time when auction took place and the amount so collected was spent on school building. He thus submits that the impugned order deserves to be set aside. He has emphasized that application earlier preferred by the BDPO for cancellation of auction was dismissed by the DDPO, which order was never challenged. According to him, thereafter there was no occasion for the BDPO to assess the loss under Section 105 of the Gram Panchayat Act. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the State has however supported the order passed by the revisional authority, i.e., Joint Director, Panchayats, Punjab. She submits that the order has been passed in the facts CWP No. 11187 of 1988 4 and circumstances of the case and deserves to be upheld. No one has put in appearance on behalf of the Gram Panchayat. Neither any reply has been filed on behalf of the Gram Panchayat nor it is represented before this court through counsel. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record annexed with the petition. A perusal of the order passed by the DDPO dated 5.2.1986 (Annexure P-1) shows that after examining the record, he arrived at a conclusion that auction was conducted in accordance with the rules. It was for this reason that application for setting aside the auction was dismissed earlier. He thus set aside the order passed by the BDPO dated 8.8.1985 for recovery of Rs. 6878/- as loss caused to the panchayat. The said authority came to a firm conclusion that money was needed by the Gram Panchayat when land was leased out by auctioning the same. The said money is said to have been spent on school building situated in the village. The operative part of the order passed by the said authority reads thus:- “So,I reach to this conclusion that when the auction has been done in public according to rules, no loss has been caused to the panchayat because Gram Panchayat has spent the money on school building at that very time after recovery of the same which is a very good work of development. Taking into consideration these facts, I set aside the order No.1300 dated

8.8.1985 passed by the Block Development and Panchayat Officer under Section 105 of Punjab Gram Panchayat Act. Order Pronounced.” CWP No. 11187 of 1988 5 It appears that in the revision petition preferred by the Gram Panchayat, the aforesaid finding of the DDPO was set aside. The revisional authority held that the auction was not held in accordance with the rules. It is however, not clear as to how the revisional authority arrived at this conclusion. The order is completely silent on this issue. The only basis for reversing the finding appears to be that the auction fetched lesser amount than the previous year. The revisional authority simply proceeded on the basis of that there is increase in bid money every year which was not the case in the instant auction. He observed that normally bid money should be higher by 20 % per annum. On this basis, he proceeded to hold that loss had been caused to the panchayat and held the petitioner liable. I am of the considered view that this approach of the revisional authority is unsustainable in law. Merely because bid in the instant auction did not fetch the right price, it cannot be said that loss was caused to the Gram Panchayat intentionally. Admittedly, auction was held in public according to the rules by accepting the highest bid and the money received was spent on school building in the village. The petitioner thus cannot be held liable in any manner. The impugned order dated 20.5.1988 is unsustainable in the eyes of law and set aside. The writ petition is thus allowed . No costs. February 17,2010 (RAJAN GUPTA) JUDGE