HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.479 of 2011 Date 28.01.2011 Between: Pasham Sanjay Babu. ..... PETITIONER AND The Government of A.P. rep. By its Principal Secretary, Panchayat Raj Department, Secretariat, Hyderabad and others. .....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the petitioner :Sri A.Rajashekar Reddy Counsel for the Respondents : Assistant Government Pleader for Panchayat Raj HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.479 of 2011 ORDER: The main grievance of the petitioner in this Writ Petition is that though an appeal was filed by him on 06.12.2010, along with stay application, against the order dated 22.11.2010 passed by respondent No.2 removing him from the office of Sarpanch, the stay application was not disposed of even after expiry of six weeks. On 21.01.2011, this Court adjourned the case to enable the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Panchayat Raj to report to the Court on the status of the petitioner’s stay application pending before respondent No.1. Today, at the hearing, learned Assistant Government Pleader for Panchayat Raj stated that the stay application has been posted to 14.02.2011. In my opinion, the leisurely manner in which the stay application is treated by respondent No.1 cannot be appreciated. There is no gainsaying of the fact that respondent No.1 which exercises quasi-judicial functions while entertaining the appeals filed by the persons aggrieved by their removal under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 has a statutory duty to act in a fair manner. The very purpose of filing the stay application is to see that the operation of the order impugned in the appeal is interdicted till the disposal of the appeal. Therefore, a salutary duty is cast on the appellate authority to consider the stay application and pass an appropriate order either granting the relief or rejecting the same so that the aggrieved party can avail further remedy in the event of rejection of interim relief. Non-passing of such orders for substantially long time would only frustrate the purpose for which the appellate or revisional remedies are provided and power is conferred on the authorities to grant interim orders. This is one such case where the purpose of the petitioner is getting frustrated by non-disposal of the stay application by respondent No.1. In the face of these facts, I deem it appropriate to suspend the proceedings dated 22.11.2010 passed by respondent No.2 till the disposal of the appeal by respondent No.1. The Writ Petition is accordingly allowed in part. As a sequel to disposal of the main petition, WPMP.No.600 of 2011 filed by the petitioner for interim relief is disposed of as infructuous. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY,J Date:28.01.2011 usd