SANDEEP MEHTA,J. - (1.) Heard learned counsel for the parties. Perused the material available on record.
(2.) Shri N.L. Joshi learned counsel representing the petitioners relies upon the Single Bench Judgment of this Court in the case of Amarjeet Singh v. The State of Rajasthan, reported in 2017(3) WLC (Raj.) 506 and urges that the Executive Engineer acted with gross illegality and arbitrariness while imposing penalty of 20% of water usage charges upon all farmers of Chak 78 RB/A without identifying the particular person who was responsible for the alleged water theft. He thus urges that order (Annexure-3) dated 04.11.2015 and the order (Annexure-1) dated 22.01.2015 whereby, all the farmers of the entire chak measuring 545.85 bighas have been penalised in a blanket manner without affirming that guilt for the water theft is per se illegal and arbitrary and hence, the instant writ petition deserves to be accepted.
(3.) Shri Rajpurohit, learned AGC appearing on behalf of the respondents is not in a position to dispute the fact that Executive Engineer did not fix the liability of the act which provides that the persons who were using water supply unauthorisedly cannot be identified and all the persons were penalised in respect of water theft. He further urged that as per Section 33 of the Act, where the persons responsible for unauthorised use of water cannot be identified, all persons chargeable in respect of water supply can be penalised.;