- (1.) Special leave granted. The Constitution (Seventy-Third Amendment) Act, 1992 came into force on 24th April, 1993 to give effect to one of the Directive Principles of the State Policy, viz., Article 40 of the Constitution of India which directs the State to organize village panchayats as units of self-government. On coming into force of the said Constitutional Amendment, the States were required by the Centre to take steps to organise village panchayats on the lines of the provisions of the said Constitutional Amendment by making law or amending the existing law suitably. The Uttar Pradesh State Legislature amended its Panchayat Raj Act, 1947 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act'- by enacting the U. P. Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Act, 1994 which came into force on 22nd April 1994. As per the provisions of the Act, several Government instructions and notifications were issued and rules were framed between 22nd April, 1994 and 31st August, 1994 with a view to hold elections to the panchayats. In particular the declaration of the gram panchayat areas u/S. 11-F and the establishment of the gram Sabhas under Section 3, were made between 2nd and 5th August, 1994. The term of the gram panchayats constituted under the unamended provisions of the Act was to expire on 23rd April, 1993. The Governor extended their term till 23rd April 1995 or till new panchayats were constituted, whichever was earlier. The elections to the new panchayats were then notified on 31st August, 1994. In pursuance of this notification the election process was to commence on 29th September, 1994. The respondents approached the High Court by writ petitions between 1st and 9th September, 1994 making a grievance that the Government orders were being violated in the process of re-organisation and delimitation of the constituencies. A few of the respondent-writ petitioners also challenged the said Constitutional Amendment as well as the vires of the Act. The High Court heard all the petitions together. The State Government, by filing an affidavit as well as through publications in the press from 9th September to 19th September, 1994, offered a fresh time-schedule of the elections and also to remove the grievances after considering the representations. On 24th September, 1994, the State Government cancelled the notification dated 31st August, 1994. On 26th September, 1994, the High Court reserved its judgment. In the meantime, under compulsion and pressure from the Centre including a threat to stop the release of funds unless the process of election was completed by 31st December, 1994, conveyed in the Centre's communication dated 12th November, 1994, the State Government renotified the dates of elections on 26th November, 1994 in pursuance whereof the process of election was to commence on 3rd December, 1994. The High Court by its impugned judgment delivered on 2nd December, 1994 has held, among other things, that the definitions of 'Village' under Section 2 (t), of 'Gram Sabha' under Section 2(g) and of 'Panchayat Area' under Section 2(11) read with Section 11-F of the Act were ultra vires the respective definitions given in Articles 243 (g), 243 (b), and 243 (e) read with Article 243-C of the Constitution. High Court has further held; (i) that the village has to be a habitat according to the anthropological concept, (ii) that the village for the purposes of the Panchayat can be specified only in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants of the village as conveyed to the Governor who is obliged to notify it without involvement of the State Government, (iii) that the Governor has to act independently of the State Government in the matter of specification of the "village" and (iv) further the village will have to be fixed according to the aspirations, chauvinism and the wishes of the villagers. As regards the Gram Sabha, the Court has held that although definition of Gram Sabha refers to a body of persons registered in the electoral rolls, the reference to "establishment under Section 3" and provision for establishment and notification of Gram Sabha in Section 3, are ultra vires the Constitution and that the State Government has no power to establish or notify Gram Sabha. It will appear from the impugned judgment that its main thrust is against the definition of 'village' in Section 2 (t) of the Act. The other findings are directed more against the procedure laid down in the Act to take the various steps for constituting the panchayats than against the substantial provisions. Before we deal with the findings of the High Court, we may usefully refer to the relevant provisions of the Constitution and the Act.
(2.) The provisions of Article 40, to give effect to which the 73rd Constitutional Amendment was effected read as follows: "40. Organisation of village panchayats. The States shall take steps to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government." The aforesaid provisions neither define 'village' nor give guidelines for organising village panchayats. All that they require is that the village panchayats howsoever organised have to be equipped with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government. There is, however, no doubt that when the Article speaks of village panchayats as units of self-government, it has in view the organisation of the lowest level units of self-governance in the hierarchy of self-governing, democratic, policy making and administrative units. In other words, the village panchayats are envisaged by the Article as the base democratic institutions of a pyramid of the democratically orgainsed and functioning self-governing units. This being so, while organising the village panchayats, what is necessary to be kept in minds is (a) that they are to be the self-governing units at the lowest end of the democratic polity, (b) that being self-governing units, those who are governed by the said units and for whose benefit they are going to operate, will have either a direct or an elective indirect representation in them: (c) that they will have an effective say in the conduct of their affairs including its plans, policies and programmes and their execution, and (d) that thus they will have not only a sense and satisfaction of participation but also an experience in the governance of their own affairs. So long as the village panchayats are organised to achieve the said objectives, the requirements of the said Article will have been complied with both in their spirit and in letter.
(3.) We may now turn to the provisions of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment by which Part IX consisting of Articles 243 to 243-0 has been introduced in the Constitution. Article 243 (g) defines 'village' to mean a village specified by the Governor by public notification to be a village for the purposes of the said Part and includes a group of villages so specified. It will be apparent from this definition of 'village' that on the one hand, it does not stick to any particular, much less the vintage concept of village that the High Court has in mind, viz., the anthropologically evolved and sociologically identifiable habitat and on the other, it gives the Governor power to specify a village as he may deem fit. The village so specified by him may include a group of villages. The Constitution permits the Governor to declare any populated rural area as a village. The village which the Governor has to specify is a village for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of Part IX of the Constitution and not for any other purpose. Hence to bring in any particular concept of village and to read into the said Article any pre-conceived notion of village is unwarranted by law.;