RAJAN ROY,J. - (1.) Heard.
(2.) Considering the order proposed to be passed issuance of notice to private opposite party is dispensed with.
(3.) The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners who are members of the Gram Panchayat is that consequent to the death of the incumbent Gram Pradhan an order has been passed by the District Magistrate, Balrampur on 05.11.2019 under Section 12-J of the U.P. Panchayat Raj Act, 1947 directing the opposite party no. 4- Smt. Dukhna to discharge the duties of the Office of Gram Pradhan. The contention is that there was no consultation with the Members of the Gram Panchayat as was mandatory in view of the Division Bench of this Court in the case Udaivir Vs. State Election Commission and Anr. reported in (2009) 106 RD 151, therefore, the impugned order needs to be quashed, however, the Court finds that the aforesaid decision in Udaivir's case (supra) was subsequently clarified by another Division Bench in the case of Shyamu Vs. State of U.P. and Ors. reported (2010) 5 All LJ 456 in the following terms:- "13.The question for our consideration is whether the later part of the observations made in Smt. Usha Singh (supra), which proceeds to hold that the Prescribed Authority ought to ask the elected members to hold a meeting and such members should decide, amongst themselves, as to who should be nominated as Pradhan and based on this, the Prescribed Authority should nominate the Pradhan, is in conformity with the language of Section 12-J of the Act? 14.We have earlier quoted Section 12-J of the Act. The Section, literally read, confers power on the Prescribed Authority alone to nominate a member of the Gram Panchayat. There is no provision for the Prescribed Authority to mandatorily consult the members of the Gram Panchayat. The settled legal principle of the interpretation is, in the first instance, to read the language of the Section in its literal sense. It is only in the event, when the reading of the literal language would result into the absurdity or detract from the intent of the legislature, the Court steps into read the provision in consonance of the intent of the legislature. The intention of the legislation is primarily to be gathered from the language used, which means that attention should be paid to what has been said as also what has not been said. As a consequence, a construction, which requires for its support addition or substitution of words or which results in rejection of words as meaningless has to be avoided. [(See Shyam Kishori Devi Vs. The Patna Municipal Corporation and Anr., AIR 1966 SC 1678, and A.R. Antulay Vs. Ramdas Sriniwas Nayak and Anr., (1984) 2 SCC 500]. ;