SUNIL AMBWANI, J. - (1.) HEARD learned Counsel for the petitioner, and learned Standing Counsel.
(2.) THE petitioner is serving as Head Muharrir as a confirmed employee of Nagar Panchayat, Moth, District Jhansi. By this writ petition, he has prayed for a direction to State of U.P. through Director, Local Bodies, Lucknow and Chairman, Nagar Panchayat Moth, District Jhansi to pay the entire arrears of salary and current salary to the petitioners which is due to her. The petitioner and other similarly situate employees were not paid salary from March 1997. This Court had made several attempts to persuade the respondents to clear the arrears. Sri K.K. Upadhayay, Director of Local Bodies, Allahabad was directed to file counter -affidavit. His personal presence was exempted on 29 -3 -2004 as he was on Election Duty and an mandamus was issued directing the respondents to pay the salary to the petitioner beginning from 1 -3 -2004. The question of payment of salary from the funds allocated to the Nagar Panchayat was required to be considered on the date of hearing. In the counter -affidavit of Sri Amrit Lal, Executive Officer, Moth, District Jhansi an explanation has been offered for non -payment of salary. It is stated that he has passed an order on the representation made by the petitioner on 8 -1 -2004 for payment of Rs. 1,39,830.00 as arrears of salary and pensions etc. The salary for only April, May and June, 2003 was paid to him. It is admitted by the Nagar Panchayat that Rs. 1,39,830.00 is payable to the petitioner and that a total amount of Rs. 57,54,156.00 is due to be paid to other employees of the Nagar Panchayat. In Para 5 it is stated that as soon as the funds will be made available to the Nagar Panchayat from the State Government, the arrears shall be paid. In Para 6, details of income of Nagar Panchayat and expenditure has been provided. The total income of Nagar Panchayat from its own sources and the grants given by the State Finance Commission is only Rs. 16,19,000.00 per annum where as the liability of the salaries of the staff and employees alone is Rs. 25,20,000/ -per annum. The Nagar Panchayat collected only Rs. 5,90,000.00 from its own sources and has received grants from State Finance Commission of Rs. 11 lakhs in the year 2002 -2003.
(3.) SRI K.K. Upadhyay, Director, Local Bodies, U.P. has filed a short counter -affidavit on behalf of State Government. He submits that with the 74th Amendment of the Constitution of India, the Nagar Panchayats have become autonomous institutions. The State Finance Commission grants financial assistance to Nagar Panchayats for development works as per ratio of the population and the area of Nagar Panchayats. As per recommendations of State Finance Commissioner 7% of the total tax recovered by the State Government is provided to the local bodies, out of which 3.12% is given to Nagar Nigam, 3.12% to the 195 Nagar Palika Parishads and the rest 0.76% to the 417 Nagar Panchayats. This proportion has been fixed considering the ratio of population and the area of the local body. The Nagar Panchayat, Moth was given 13.47 lakhs in the year 2001 -02, Rs. 14.01 lakhs in the year 2002 -03, and Rs. 11.38 lakhs in the year 2003 -04 from outside of the allocation made by the State Finance Commission. This amount is given as grant for development work.;