Allahabad High Court
Gram Sabha Patanai Bujurg vs State Of U.P. And 4 Others on 9 July, 2019
Bench: Ajit Kumar
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 9
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 21283 of 2019
Petitioner :- Gram Sabha Patanai Bujurg
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 4 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Ramesh Chandra Upadhyay
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Ajit Kumar,J.
By means of present writ petition, the petitioner as Gaon Sbha has assailed the order passed by the Collector Mau whereby appeal of the Gaon Sabha has come to be dismissed on the ground that there is no resolution of the Gaon Sabha for preferring the appeal.
In the considered opinion of the Court, the Pradhan of the Gaon Sabha happens to be the Chairman of the Land Management Committee also and if appeal has been preferred and the appeal has been preferred for protection public land, the endeavour of the authority should have been to call for a fresh resolution of the Gaon Sabha to pursue the remedy instead of dismissing the appeal on technical ground. Even otherwise, the Pradhan of Gram Sabha for all practical and legal purposes is authorized to pursue the litigation of the Gram Sabha.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has also relied upon the judgment of this court in the case of Mathai Lal Dube v. District Magistrate, Sant Ravidas Nagar, 2000 (4) AWC 2752, in which paragraph 24 of the judgment it has been held thus:
"24. The questions that remained to be examined are about locus standi and alternative remedy. Both the objections raised by the respondents are without any substance. The law on focus standi was widened by the Apex Court in S. P. Gupta v. Union of India, AIR 1982 SC 149 and Bangalore Medical Trust v. B.S. Muddappa and others. AIR 1991 SC 1902. The petitioner who is admittedly a member of gaon sabha cannot be considered as busy body. The land of gaon sabha cannot be considered as busy body. The land of gaon sabha is public property and if the authorities for extraneous reasons transfer it in favour of a private body, then they fail to perform their statutory duty in accordance with law and their action can be challenged by any member of the gaon sabha in public interest. Similarly the Apex Court has held in Whirlpool Corporation v. Registrar of Trade Marks, (1998) 8 SCC 1, that where an order is without Jurisdiction or palpably erroneous, it can be challenged under Article 225 of the Constitution. It has been seen that the order passed by the S.D.M. was not only illegal but without Jurisdiction, therefore, the bar of alternative remedy did not apply. In fact the S.D.M. could not have exercised power as delegate of the State Government while exercising power under the 1995 or 1998 order, therefore, the argument of alternative remedy is without any merit."
At this stage, learned counsel for the petitioner states that Gram Sabha is ready to pass appropriate resolution to pursue the appeal.
Learned Standing Counsel although has defended the impugned orders on the ground that resolution is must but so far as appeal at the instance of Pradhan is concerned, he submits that this technical flaw can be removed by Collector.
In view of above, the order passed by Collector, Mau dated 18.4.2019 is hereby quashed. It is provided that in case if Gaon Sabha passes resolution for pursuing the appeal within two weeks from today, the Collector shall proceed to consider and decide the appeal on merits as expeditiously as possible preferably within period of three months after the date of production of resolution of Gaon Sabha.
The writ petition is accordingly disposed of with the above observations and directions. .
Order Date :- 9.7.2019
Sanjeev
