Civil Writ Petition No.7029 of 2011 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.7029 of 2011 Date of Decision:28.11.2011 Nirmal Kaur ......Petitioner Versus State of Punjab and others .....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Ms.Puja Chopra, Advocate, for the petitioner. Ms.Ambika Luthra, Assistant Advocate General, Punjab, for respondent Nos.1 to 3. Mr.D.P.S. Kahlon, Advocate, for respondent No.4. **** M EHINDER S INGH S ULLAR , J.(oral) The epitome of the facts, which requires to be noticed for the limited purpose of deciding the core controversy, involved in the instant writ petition and emanating from the record is that, the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat of the Punjab Government, formulated a scheme dated 18.05.2010 (Annexure R-1/T) , in regard to the distribution of funds of the discretionary grants for the Financial Year 2010-2011, to be sanctioned by the Chief Minister/Deputy Chief Minister/Cabinet Minister and the Chief Parliamentary Secretary. The indicated scheme was stated to have been approved by the Cabinet of the Punjab Government. In pursuance thereof, in the present case, a grant of Rs.10 lacs was sanctioned by the Minister of Agriculture and issued to the President of the Welfare and Development Society of village Bhandal, by way of impugned letter dated 15.03.2011(Annexure P-4). 2. Petitioner-Nirmal Kaur, Sarpanch of the Gram Panchayat Bhandal, District Gurdaspur, did not feel satisfied and preferred the present writ petition, Civil Writ Petition No.7029 of 2011 2 challenging the impugned letter(Annexure P-4), by means of which, the Cabinet Minister has sanctioned/issued the grants to the Bhandal Welfare and Development Society, inter alia, pleading that the grant in question has been issued to the President of the Society, only to harass her, on the basis of political affiliations by the Ruling Party. According to the petitioner that, the grant cannot be transferred to any other institution, except the Gram Panchayat. On the basis of aforesaid allegations, the petitioner sought the quashment of the impugned letter(Annexure P-4), in the manner depicted hereinabove. 3. The respondents refuted the claim of the petitioner and filed the reply, taking certain preliminary objections of, maintainability of the writ petition, cause of action and locus standi of the petitioner. According to the respondents that, the grant in question was not sanctioned in favour of the Gram Panchayat, but it is a discretionary grant issued in pursuance of Government Policy(Annexure R- 1/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. 4. During the course of arguments, learned counsel for the parties are ad idem that they have no objection if the indicated grant issued in pursuance of the impugned letter(Annexure P-4), is spent on the development works of the village under the direct supervision of the District Development and Panchayat Officer, who is overall responsible as per Clause 16 of the Scheme(Annexure R- 1/T). 5. In view of the above, the instant writ petition is disposed of with the direction that the indicated grant issued, in pursuance of the impugned letter (Annexure P-4) shall be spent for the specific purpose of development of the village, for which it was sanctioned, under the direct supervision of the District Development and Panchayat Officer. November 28, 2011 (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR) seema JUDGE Civil Writ Petition No.7029 of 2011 3