Civil Writ Petition No.22561 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.22561 of 2010 Date of Decision:19.04.2011 Kailash Rani ......Petitioner Versus State of Punjab and others .....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Mr.V.K.Sandhir, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Palwinder Singh, Sr.Deputy Advocate General, Punjab, for the respondents. **** M EHINDER S INGH S ULLAR , J.(oral) The contour of the facts, which needs a necessary mention for the limited purpose of deciding the core controversy involved in the instant writ petition and emanating from the record, is that in the wake of general Gram Panchayat election, the petitioner was elected as a Sarpanch, while eleven persons were elected as Panches of Gram Panchayat of village Amargarh, District Sangrur, in view of the provisions of The Punjab Panchayati Raj Act, 1994(hereinafter to be referred as “the Act”). 2. The Gram Panchayat was stated to have spent the amount of grants on development works of the village, but six Panches belonging to the ruling Akali Dal Party did not cooperate with the Sarpanch, who belongs to the Congress Party. Therefore, she(petitioner) made a complaint(Annexure P-1). The Block Development and Panchayat Officer(respondent No.3)(for brevity “the BDPO”) by virtue of letter dated 13.09.2010 had brought to the notice of the DDPO that due to non-cooperation of the Sarpanch/Panches, the amount of the grant sanctioned to Civil Writ Petition No.22561 of 2010 2 the Gram Panchayat is lying un-utilised. The DDPO issued notices to the Members Panchayat to spend the amount of grants within the stipulated period. The BDPO inspected the spot and again reported that the Gram Panchayat had not started the development works. Therefore, he(BDPO) recommended to appoint the Administrator of the indicated Gram Panchayat. 3. Taking cognizance of the recommendation of the BDPO and keeping in view the public interest of the Gram Panchayat, the DDPO appointed Prem Singh, Panchayat Secretary as Administrator of the Gram Panchayat till 12.11.2010 by way of impugned order dated 20.10.2010(Annexure P-5). The operative part of which is, as under:- “Under this condition, I, Vinod Kumar Gagat, Distt. Development Panchayat Officer, Sangrur, in exercising the powers under Section 200(1) of Punjab Panchayati Raj Act 1994 by agreeing with the above report/recommendation of B.D.P.O. Malerkotla-I and keeping in view the public interest, of Gram Panchayat Ahmedgarh, Rs.50,000/- for S.C. Dharamshala, Rs.50,000/- under R.D.F. Scheme, Rs.1,00,000/- M.P.Quota, 12th Finance Commission for drainage of dirty water and Rs.2,83,000/- under R.D.F.Scheme remained to be spent. At many places, due to rain water is standing. Therefore, it is fear of spreading diseases. For distributing the salary of sweepers, electricity bills, for delivering pension, I appoint Sh.Prem Singh, Panchayat Secretary as Administrator with the direction that the Administrator will be bound to do this work according to Government instructions and to spend expenditure to do this work as per technical guidelines given by the concerned J.E. For this he will not be given any additional allowances. Except this the Administrator will not do any work of the village. The Administrator will got enter the work in the M.B.(measurement book ) and after pre-auditing the same from the S.D.O. Panchayati Raj will be bound to send the used certificate to the concerned organization. These orders will take effect from 12.11.2010.” 4. The term of the Administrator was further extended to complete the development work till 18.12.2010 by means of impugned order dated 18.11.2010 (Annexure P-6). 5. The petitioner did not feel satisfied and preferred the present writ Civil Writ Petition No.22561 of 2010 3 petition, challenging the impugned orders(Annexures P-5 and P-6), invoking the provisions of Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India. 6. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties, going through the record with their valuable assistance and after considering the entire matter deeply, to my mind, there is no merit in the instant writ petition in this context. 7. What is not disputed here is that the DDPO has only appointed the Administrator for utilising the amount of grants for the development of the village till 12.11.2010 by virtue of impugned order(Annexure P-5) and extended the tenure till 18.12.2010 to complete the development works vide impugned order (Annexure P-6). The period of tenure of the Administrator has already expired. 8. Meaning thereby, the impugned orders(Annexures P-5 and P-6) were passed for a limited purpose and were effective only upto 18.12.2010. Once, the period of operation of the Administrator has already expired on 18.12.2010 and functioning of the Gram Panchayat stood already restored, then the question of setting aside the impugned orders(Annexures P-5 and P-6) did not arise at all. The present petition challenging such functus orders becomes infructuous. Therefore, no ground for interference in the impugned orders(Annexures P-5 and P-6) is made out, in exercise of the extraordinary writ jurisdiction of this Court, in the obtaining circumstances of the case. 9. In the light of aforesaid reasons, the instant writ petition is hereby disposed of, as having become infructuous. April 19, 2011 (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR) seema JUDGE