Civil Writ Petition No.14891 of 2011 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.14891 of 2011 DATE OF DECISION: AUGUST 16, 2011 Ram Mehar .....Petitioner VERSUS State of Haryana & others ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH PRESENT: Mr. Vikram Sheoran, Advocate, for the petitioner. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. A vacancy for Lambardar in Village Bohal, Tehsil Bawani Khera, District Bhiwani, arose on the death of one Sh. Lehri Singh. Applications were invited through proper process for filling of the said post on 8.11.2006. The candidates did not turn up before the Assistant Collector, 2nd Grade and hence, the applications were rejected. Fresh applications were sought upto 28.12.2006 through munadi. As per the petitioner, only two persons made application for the post of Lambardar and they were Sh. Prahlad and the petitioner. Prahlad withdrew his application and thus, the petitioner remained alone in the field for appointment to the post in question and was appointed. Respondent No.3, however, much after that date i.e. 28.12.2006, submitted his application on the Civil Writ Petition No.14891 of 2011 -2- ground that no munadi was effected and hence, he could not submit his application for being considered for appointment as Lamberdar. The said application was allowed by the Assistant Collect 2nd Grade. As averred in the petition, an appeal was filed by the petitioner for cancellation of candidature of respondent No.3 and allowed on 14.7.2009 by the Collector and the petitioner was appointed as Lamberdar of the village. It is stated that the order is a well reasoned one. This averment has been wrongly made by the petitioner though inadvertently. It is noticed that the appeal filed by the petitioner instead was rejected by the Collector. Thereafter, the petitioner filed a revision, which was wrongly mentioned in the petition to have been filed by respondent No.3. The Commissioner, however, allowed the claim of the petitioner, which was challenged before the Financial Commissioner by respondent No.3. The Financial Commissioner had upheld the order passed by the Assistant Collector and the Collector, which the petitioner has now impugned through the present writ petition. The Financial Commissioner considered the entire matter and had recorded valid and cogent reasons, which will indicate that the second munadi was either not done or not done properly in the village, whereby the competition was restricted alone to the petitioner. The reasons recorded by the Financial Commissioner read as under:- “To start with there is no office number and date on the letter sent to Patwari for conducting munadi for the second time, whereas, the first letter had a proper number and date. Careful examination of this letter and its carbon copy indicate alteration in the date, which Civil Writ Petition No.14891 of 2011 -3- instead of 28, originally appears to be 20. A similar alteration appears to have been made in the zimni order dated 29.11.2006 recorded by reader of the Assistant Collector, 2nd Grade in the court file. Here also the date which originally was 20 appears to be changed to 28. A comparison of the writing shows that at no other place '8' has been written as is written in this order. All this creates doubt and supports the version of no munadi, as alleged by the petitioner. It is also observed that there are no signatures of any Lambardar or any other respectable person on the munadi. It has been stated that munadi was conducted on 18.12.2006, whereas in the Rajnamcha the date written on the top of the page is 21.12.2006. The time allowed for submission of applications is less than even 12 days, as the last date for submission of applications was fixed on 28.12.2006. Further it is also noticed that petitioner had submitted his application on 31.12.2006 as is clear from the order written by court official on this application, whereas, the date for submission as indicated by lower revenue court is 07.01.2007. Another important aspect which is not understandable is, why the application which was submitted after the last date fixed, was accepted and allowed by Assistant Collector, 2nd Grade, as this is against the law and procedure.” The Financial Commissioner also noticed that the conduct of the respondents and other applicants, who did not oppose the consent, would be little astonishing. On this basis, he gave a finding that there were irregularities and violation of the rules and procedure. Non conduct of munadi, thus, has been accepted by recording well reasoned order, which apparently cannot be challenged on any viable ground. The effort on the part of the petitioner to seek withdrawal Civil Writ Petition No.14891 of 2011 -4- of this petition to file a fresh seems to be only to gain time. The absence of proper consideration and the appointment of the petitioner or the remand as done by the Commissioner cannot be upheld. A fair order has been passed for conducting the fresh munadi and inviting applications and then considering the appointment of a suitable person for the appointment of Lamberdar. No case for interference in exercise of writ jurisdiction, thus, is made out. The writ petition is dismissed. The request of the counsel for the petitioner to consider the application of the petitioner in view of the earlier munadi cannot be accepted in view of the observations as made above. August 16, 2011 (RANJIT SINGH) monika JUDGE