1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR. Writ Petition No.1728/2010 ( Mahendra Babulal Raiborde and others ..Vs.. Additional Commissioner, Amravati and others ) _______________________________________________________________________ Office Notes, Office Memoramda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders of directions Court's or Judge's orders. and Registrar's Orders. ______________________________________________________________________________ Shri A.C. Dharmadhikari with Ms Deshpande, Adv. for petitioners. Shri R.V. Gaikwad, Adv. for caveator/respondent no.4. CORAM : Mrs. MRIDULA BHATKAR J . DATED : 6 th SPETEMBER 2010. Petitioner challenges the order dated 31st of March 2010 passed by Additional Commissioner, Amravati declaring the petitioners to be disqualified for the post of Sarpanch and Members under section 39 (1) of the Bombay Village Panchayats Act, 1958 (for short “the Act”). The petitioner no.1 is Sarpanch and the petitioner nos.2 to 6 are the Members of Grampanchayat Ghungshi. The petitioners have passed resolution on 13/4/2009 that two rooms of the school of Zilla Parishad are to be allotted to the school run by a private trust. On 13/4/2009 Parliamentary elections were scheduled and code of conduct was in force. Thereafter, on the complaint filed by respondent no.4, the petitioners were declared disqualified for their respective posts. 2 The learned counsel appearing for the petitioners tried to distinguish between resolution and the actual policy decision and has submitted that in fact on 13/4/2009 neither resolution was passed nor policy decision was taken by the petitioners and therefore, their conduct is falling out of the ambit of code of conduct so the order passed by the Additional Commissioner, Amravati is bad in law. She has further submitted that the decision of allotting two rooms of Zilla Parishad was only forwarded to the authority i.e. Chief Executive Officer in compliance of section 55 of the Act as Grampanchayat was not authorized to take such decision. Moreover, the decision passed was subsequently withdrawn hence no actual damage was done. The learned counsel for respondent opposed the writ petition on the ground that the action taken by the Additional Commissioner, Amravati is consistent with the law. The submissions of the learned counsel for the petitioners that the decision taken by petitioners in the meeting held on 13/4/2009 is neither resolution nor policy decision are not convincing. The extract of the minutes of the said meeting ‘Annexure D’ discloses that allotment of rooms of Zilla Parisahd to private school is a policy and it was resolved for the final approval of the authority under section 55 of the Act. The same was proposed by petitioner no.3 and seconded by the petitioner no.4. 3 It further discloses that Gramsewak who was present at the time of the meeting has explained about the code of conduct however, it appears that despite this warning, the resolution was passed. It is immaterial whether actual damage is caused or not when the code of conduct itself is violated. There is no merit in this writ petition. No interference is called for in the order dated 31st of March 2010 passed by Additional Commissioner, Amravati. Writ petition is therefore, dismissed. The operation and effect of this order is stayed for four weeks i.e. till 4/10/2010 at the request of Shri Dharmadhikari, learned counsel for the petitioners. JUDGE Tambaskar.