G KANAKAYYA PRESIDENT PANCHAYAT SAMITHI TADIKONDA GUNTUR Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to issue a writ of certiorari and to quash the order of the first respondent-State of Andhra Pradesh-G.O. Ms. No. 612, dated I2th April, 1961, Planning and Local Administration (S.I.) Department, superseding the Panchayat Samithi of Tandikonda, Guntur district. The petitioner is the President of the Panchayat Samithi. The first respondent is the State of Andhra Pradesh. Respondents 2 and 3 are respectively the District Collector, Guntur and the Block Development Officer, Tandikonda. Some members of the Panchayat applied to be impleaded as party respondents and they were ordered to be so impleaded in C.M.P. No. 4918 of 1961 and they are respondents 4 to 21.

(2.) The Panchayat Samithi was constituted under the Panchayat Samithis and Zilla Parishads Act, Andhra Pradesh Act XXXV of 1959, on 6th November, 1959. The petitioner had been elected as the President. As it happens not infrequently, the Panchayat is riddled with faction. According to section 30 (1) of the Act, the budgets have to be sanctioned by Panchayat Samithi. The Samithi did not do so. The Government, in G.O.Ms. No. 12, Planning and Local Administration (S.I.) Department, dated 5th January, 1961, called upon the Samithi to submit to the Government a satisfactory explanation for the resolutions passed by them rejecting the budget for 1960-61. The Panchayat Samithi did not tender any explanation to the Government in respect of the G.O. passed by them. On the contrary, it passed a resolution on 30th January, 1961, alleging that the action of the Government in calling upon the Samithi to give an explanation for the rejection of the budgets was an unwarranted trespass into the domain of its internal autonomy and was otherwise also not justified. It was obvious, therefore, that the affairs of the Samithi were heading to a stalemate.

(3.) Thereupon, the first respondent-Government issued on 6th March, 1961 a notice calling upon the Panchayat of Tandikonda to show cause why the Panchayat should not be superseded under section 63 of Act XXXV of 1959. The notice is in these terms :-