Telangana High Court

Boya Suguna vs The State Of Telangana on 18 July, 2022

Bench: A.Abhishek Reddy

      THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE A.ABHISHEK REDDY

                 WRIT PETITION No.26484 of 2021
ORDER:

Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner, the learned

Government Pleader for Panchayat Raj for respondent No.1, the

learned Government Pleader for Revenue for respondent Nos.2

and 3, and Sri T. Srujan Kumar Reddy, learned counsel for

respondent No.4. With their consent, the writ petition is

disposed of at the admission stage.

2) Seeking to declare the action of respondent No.3 in

issuing the Form-IV notice vide proceedings No.G/2668/2021,

dated 04.10.2021 under Section 30 (1) of the Telangana

Panchayat Raj Act, 2018, proposing to conduct No-confidence

Motion meeting on 28.10.2021 at 11.00 AM at Pullemla Gram

Panchayat, Nalgonda District, as arbitrary and illegal, the

present Writ Petition is filed.

3) The learned counsel for the petitioner has stated that

even though mandatory period of 30 days is provided under the

provision of Rule 3 of the Rules relating to Motion of

No-Confidence against Upa-Sarpanch of the Gram Panchayat,

or President or Vice-President of Mandal Parishad, or

Chairperson or Vice-Chairperson of the Zilla Parishad, as the

case may be, framed under the G.O. Ms.No.200 P.P. & R.D.

(Mandal-I), dated 28.04.1998, (in short 'the Rules'), but in the

case on hand, the number of days between the date of issuance

of Form-I notice and initial Form-IV notice is more than 30 days

and therefore the same is contrary to the provisions of the Act

and the Rules, therefore the subsequent Form-IV notice is also

bad in law. Learned counsel has further stated that once the

Rules prescribe a particular thing to be done in a particular

manner, the same has to be done in that manner only and

followed scrupulously without any deviation. In this particular

case, the official respondents have deviated from Rule 3 and

issued Form-IV notice scheduling the meeting of

'No-Confidence' after a period of more than thirty days. Even if

it is the contention of the official respondents that the meeting,

dated 28.09.2021, could not be conducted due to the holiday

declared by the Government, the fact remains that the fixing of

the date of the initial meeting on 28.09.2021 itself is beyond the

period of thirty days and therefore the Form-IV notice dated

04.09.2021 is liable to be set aside. Irrespective of the fact

whether 28.09.2021 is declared as a holiday or not, the Form-IV

notice, dated 04.09.2021 fixing the date of meeting on

28.09.2021 has to be set aside on this ground alone. He further

stated that the official respondents did not hold the meeting on

28.09.2021 and thereafter a second Form-IV notice dated

04.10.2021 was issued scheduling the meeting on 28.10.2021,

which is also bad in law as the second Form-IV notice is issued

on the basis of the first Form-IV notice, which is invalid in the

eye of the law.

4) Per contra, the learned counsel for the unofficial

respondents as well as the learned Government Pleader have

stated that the initial Form-I notice was issued on 28.08.2021

and thereafter the Form-IV notice was issued on 04.09.2021

scheduling the meeting on 28.09.2021 but as the Government

had declared both 28.09.2021 and 29.09.2021 as holidays, the

meeting scheduled on 28.09.2021 could not be held. Therefore,

the official respondents had to necessarily again issue another

Form-IV notice dated 04.10.2021 scheduling the meeting on

28.10.2021. It is stated that once the process of 'No-

Confidence' begins, the same has to be taken to its logical

conclusion and relied on Tiparthi Chandra Mouli vs.

Government of Andhra Pradesh & Ors1 to buttress his case.

5)        Perused the material on record.




1   1998 (1) ALD 431





6)    Before going into the adjudication of the matter, it is

pertinent to extract Rule 3 of the Rules, which reads as under:

"3. The concerned officer specified in Rule 2 (hereinafter) in this rule referred to as said officer shall then convene and preside over a meeting for the consideration of the motion at the office of a Gram Panchayat, or at the [Mandal Praja Parishad] ... the [Zilla Praja Parishad], as the case may be, on a date appointed by him which shall not be later than thirty days from the date on which the notice under Rule 2 was delivered to him. He shall give to every member of Gram Panchayat, [Mandal Praja Parishad or Zilla Praja Parishad], as the case may be, the notice of not less than fifteen clear days excluding the date of the notice and the date of the proposed meeting of such meeting in Form-IV, or in Form-V or in Form-VI annexed to these rules either in English or in Telugu or in Urdu language, whichever is applicable."

7) Even though the learned counsel for the petitioner has

stated that date of meeting fixed in the initial Form-IV notice

dated 04.09.2021 itself is contrary to the provisions of the Act

as well as the Rules framed therein, and has stated that the

fixing of the date of meeting on 28.09.2021 itself is beyond the

thirty days period, which is calculated from the date of Form-I

notice i.e. 28.08.2021 and therefore the subsequent Form-IV

notice is also bad in law, this Court has repeatedly asked the

learned counsel for the petitioner as to what is the prejudice

caused to the petitioner if the holding of the meeting is beyond

the period of thirty days, more particularly in this case by one

day only, but the learned counsel could not give any satisfactory

answer.

8) A Full Bench of this Court in Smt. K. Sujatha vs. The

Government of Andhra Pradesh2 while dealing with a case

where the 15 days period as envisaged in Rule 3 was not

adhered to, has held that unless and until the Writ Petitioner is

able to show that due to the less number of days being granted,

the same was prejudicial to the interest of the petitioner, and

that even if there is any shortfall in the number of days, the

same cannot be a ground for setting aside the 'No-confidence

Motion'. Relevant portion of the said judgment is extracted

hereunder:

28. ... The purpose and object of giving notice of consideration of no confidence motion is only to give due intimation to the members or information of the proposed meeting. Therefore, the fact that a member has got a shorter period of notice than fifteen clear days from the date of receipt of the notice would not matter. When notice is sent by post and the law permits the date of sending of notice to be treated as the date of delivery in that case obviously the period available to the member will be shorter than fifteen clear days from delivery

2 2004 (2) APLJ 330 (HC)

to meeting, therefore, there is no reason why the Rule 3 be held to be mandatory as regards the service of notice. Unless it is shown that the shortfall in the period of notice of the meeting has caused some prejudice to the member, neither the meeting nor the proceedings taken thereunder would be said to be invalid. It is only in the eventuality of prejudice being shown that the meeting or the proceedings taken thereunder can said to be invalid."

9) In this case, as seen from the record, the no-confidence

motion meeting is fixed on the 31st day and the said meeting

also could not be conducted due to the holiday being declared

by the Government. The petitioner could not satisfy the Court

as to what prejudice is caused to him if there is excess of one

day in holding the 'No-Confidence Motion' meeting.

10) It is relevant to extract the judgment of this High Court in

Tiparthi Chandra Mouli (1 supra) wherein at para 15 it is

stated as under:

"The notice of intention contemplated under Section 245 may reach its logical end or may not, depending on the facts whether the notice does comply with various stipulations made in the said Section or not. Such being the case, a defective notice of intention to move No Confidence Motion moved once would enable the incumbent of the Office to continue for the full term irrespective of the fact whether he enjoys the confidence of the Body which he is expected to enjoy under the provisions of the Act, which according to me is certainly not the intention of the Legislature. One may

imagine the situation, in a given case, where the incumbent of the office at a given point of time enjoying the confidence of the Body, may himself engineer a defective notice of intention to move No Confidence Motion. Once such notice fails in view of the defect, the incumbent would continue to hold the office for the entire period notwithstanding the fact that he might lose the confidence of the Body subsequently. This would be an absurdity."

11) In view of the law laid down in Sujatha Case (2 supra)

and Tiparthi Chandra Mouli Case (1 supra), this Court is of

the opinion that in the absence of any proof to show as to what

prejudice is caused to the petitioner by holding the 'No-

Confidence' meeting on the 31st day instead of the 30th day as

contemplated under Rule 3 of the Rules, there are no grounds

to interfere with the impugned Form-IV notice dated 04.10.2021

and this Court does not find any merit in the present Writ

Petition and the same is accordingly dismissed.

Miscellaneous petitions pending, if any, shall stand

closed. There shall be no order as to costs. Interim order

granted by this Court stands vacated.