CWP No. 1860 of 2011 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No. 1860 of 2011 Date of decision : 07.03.2011 Jaswinder Kaur ...Petitioner versus State of Punjab and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR Present: Mr. Baltej.S. Sidhu, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Palwinder Singh, Sr. D.A.G., Punjab for the respondents. **** M ehinder S ingh S ullar, J. (Oral) As quorum of the members of the Gram Panchayat of village Babarpur, District Ludhiana was not complete, despite letter dated 27.10.2010, therefore, the District Development and Panchayat Officer, Ludhiana-respondnet No. 3 (for short “the D.D.P.O”) appointed Sh. Salim Mohammad (respondent No. 4) as Administrator to spend the grants mentioned therein, vide impugned order dated 06.01.2011 (Annexure P4), the operative part of which is as under:- “On the basis of report submitted by BDPO Dehlon, I, Mohinder Singh Grewal, DDPO Ludhiana exercising the powers under Section 200(1) of the Punjab Panchayati Raj Act hereby appoint Shri Salim Mohammad, VDO to spend the Govt. funds of Gram Panchayat Babarpur of Rs. 1,33,200/- for water supply and sanitation under 12th Finance Commission, Rs. 1.00 lac for construction of streets/drains under MPLAD Scheme, Rs. 1.00 lac for boundary wall of Pond under MPLAD Scheme and Rs. 3.00 lac for drainage of Sewerage Water under RDF Scheme and Rs, 1.50 lac for construction of streets/drains under RDF Scheme and Rs. 1,12,500/- for construction of houses under IAY Scheme. Said employee shall get the work CWP No. 1860 of 2011 -2- done under the supervision of BDPO Dehlon and shall submit report after completion of work by 28.02.2011. In case any loss is caused to the Gram Panchayat or any extra expenditure is found to be made or the Rules are violated, the above said employee and BDPO Dehlon shall be personally responsible. This order shall be effective up to 28.02.2011. Thereafter the earlier position will be restored”. 2. The petitioner did not feel satisfied and preferred the instant writ petition, challenging the impugned order dated 06.01.2011 (Annexure P4), invoking the provisions of Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India. 3. The respondents contested the claim of the petitioner and filed the reply, inter alia, pleading certain preliminary objections of maintainability of the writ petition, cause of action and locus standi of the petitioner. According to the respondents that since the Gram Panchayat failed to perform his duty and the consolidated amount of grants granted by the Government, remained unutilised halting the development work in the village, so, the DDPO has rightly appointed the Administrator for the limited purpose and for specific period for utilistation of the grants. 4. According to the official respondents, the statutory proceeding against Panches Sukhdev Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Gurdeep Kaur and Bant Singh for not co- operating with the Sarpanch was stated to have already been initiated, vide Annexure R1/T. It will not be out of place to mention here that the contesting respondents have stoutly denied all other allegations contained in the writ petition and prayed for its dismissal 5. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, having gone through the record, with their valuable assistance and after considering the entire matter deeply, to my mind, there is no merit in the present writ petition, in this context. 6. As is evident from the record, that the DDPO has appointed the Arbitrator only for the limited period and purpose of development of the village and utilisation of the Government funds of ` 1,33,200/- for water supply and CWP No. 1860 of 2011 -3- sanitation under 12th Finance Commission, ` 1.00 lac for construction of streets/drains under MPLAD Scheme, ` 1.00 lac for boundary wall of Pond under MPLAD Scheme, ` 3.00 lac for drainage of Sewerage Water under RDF Scheme, ` 1.50 lac for construction of streets/drains under RDF Scheme and ` 1,12,500/- for construction of houses under IAY Scheme that to up to 28.02.2011. Meaning thereby, since the impugned order (Annexure P4) was effective only up to 28.02.2011 and the DDPO ordered that thereafter earlier position will be restored so this writ petition has become infructuous, which is hereby dismissed as such. 7 Needless to mention here, that the respondents are directed to complete the statutory enquiry and take appropriate action against the erring Panches, within a period of three months from the receipt of certified copy of this order. (Mehinder Singh Sullar) Judge March 07, 2011 G.Arora Whether to be referred to reporter?Yes/No