- (1.) S. R. Singh, J. This petition under Article 226/221 of the Constitution has been filed for issuance of a writ of certiorari quashing the proceedings dated 20-3-1997 in which the petitioner was removed by vote of no confidence at a meeting of the Gram Panchayat Govindpur convened and held under Section 14 of the U. P. Panchayat Raj Act, 1947. The minutes of the meeting held on 20-3-1997 (Annexure-2 to the writ petition) show that 12 out of 13 members of the Gram Panchayat were present at the meeting and all of them exercised their franchise. Eight votes were polled in favour and four against the mo tion of no- confidence. The motion was declared to have been passed and the petitioner removed from the office of the Pradhan. It appears that charge could not be handed over due to certain order of stay passed by this Court in Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 8811 of 1997. Subsequently the said petition came to be dismissed and interim order vacated vide order dated 22-8-1997. Consequently the District Panchayat Raj Officer, Meerut by his order dated 9- 9-1997 directed that charge of the office of Pradhan be handed over to the Up-Pradhan. The said order dated 9-9-1997 has also been impugned in the instant writ petition.
(2.) I have heard Sri Vijay Prakash, learned Counsel for the petitioner and Sri Kripa Shankar Singh for the State Authorities. Although several grounds have been taken in the writ petition to assail the impugned orders, but the learned Counsel for the petitioner circumscribed his sub mission to the only point that the proceed ings at the meeting of no-confidence were vitiated because of reasons that the petitioner, who also happened to be the member of the Gram Panchayat by virtue of Section 12 (6) of the Act, was not al lowed to cast his vote. Learned Counsel urged that if the vote of the petitioner was also taken into account then in that event, the motion would have fallen to the ground for want of requisite majority of two-thirds of the members present and voting at the meeting. Sri Kripa Shankar Singh, learned Standing Counsel refuted the submission made by the learned Coun sel for the petitioner and tried to urge that only elected members of the Gram Panchayat were entitled to cast their votes and the Pradhan had no right to vote at a meeting convened for discussion on the motion of no-confidence brought against him. Learned Standing Counsel also urged that from the proceedings dated 20-3-1997, it would be evident that the petitioner participated in the deliberation of the meeting and exercised his franchise on the motion of no-confidence brought against him and therefore, urged the learned Standing Counsel, the motion was rightly declared to have been passed. So far as the question as to whether the Pradhan is entitled to cast his/her vote at the meeting of no- confidence brought against him/her is concerned, this Court has already taken the view, in Raj Singh and others v. District Panchayat Raj Adhikari, Muzaffarnagar and others, 1997 RD 429, that by virtue of Section 12 (6) of the U. P. Panchayat Raj Act, 1947 as it stands sub stituted by U. P. Act No. 9 of 1994, a Prad han shall be deemed to be a member of the Gram Panchayat and as such he/she is en titled to participate in the deliberations of the meeting convened for the purpose of discussion and voting on the motion of no-confidence brought against him/her under Section 14 of the Act read with rule 33-B of the Rules made there under. The same view has been taken by this Court in Civil Misc. Writ petition No. 40873 of 1997, Smt. Meera Devi v. Stale of U. P. and others, decided on 7-1 -1998.
(3.) APART from the reasons given by this Court in the above mentioned cases, it may be pertinently observed that a Gram Panchayat, according to Section 12 (1) (c) of the Act, consists of a Pradhan and elected members whose numbers may vary from 9 to 15 depending upon population of the Panchayat area. A conjoint reading of clause (c) of sub-section (1) of Section 12 and sub- section (6) thereof leaves no manner of doubt that a Pradhan is not only a member of the Gram Panchayat but he/she is an integral constituent thereof. It is true that sub-clause (iii) of clause (a) of sub-rule (5) of Rule 33-B of the U. P. Panchayat Raj Rules as amended by U. P. Panchayat Raj (Fourteenth Amendment) Rules, 1996 provides that the Presiding Officer shall be supplied a list of elected members of the Gram Panchayat con cerned but that by itself would not affect the logical consequence flowing from Sec tion 12 of the Act according to which a Pradhan is an integral constituent of the concerned Gram Panchayat and is deemed to be its member. It is not worthy that Rule 35 of the U. P. Panchayat Raj Rules, 1947 clearly provides that one-third of the total number of the members of Gram Panchayat including Pradhan and Up-Pradhan. shall form quorum for a meeting of the Gram Panchayat. This provision indicates that not only the Pradhan but Up-Pradhan as well has a voting right at any meeting of the Gram Panchayat. It may be pointed out that Up-Pradhan is elected from amongst the members of the Gram Panchayat as provided in Section 11-C and he/she does not cease his/her membership after being elected Up- Pradhan as would be evident from Section 6 of the Act which provides for the circumstances in which a member of a Gram Panchayat shall cease to be such member. Therefore, a Pradhan or Up-Pradhan cannot be kept at bay from exercising his/her right to speak at a no-confidence meeting and to vote thereat. It has been clearly ruled in the case of Smt. Meera Devi (supra) that where two-thirds majority of the members present and voting falls short by a fractiop in that eventuality the motion would be deemed to have fallen to the ground. In the case of Smt. Meera Devi (supra) it has been held as under: "it cannot be gainsaid that Section 14 of the Act and Rule 33-B (iii) of the Rules do require at least two thirds of the total number of members present and voting to be arrived at if the motion is to be deemed to have been passed. The expression 'majority of two thirds' has the same purport and import as the expression at least two-thirds'. It means that at least two-thirds of the members present and voting at a no- confidence meeting validly convened must vote in favour of motion ifit has to be carried. In case it falls short by a fraction, the fraction would be rounded off for the purpose of computing two-thirds majority. ";