IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.17203 of 2010 Sneh Lata, Wife of Rabindra Kumar Singh, Resident of Mohalla Shikshak Colony Charitra Van, P.S. Buxar, in the District of Buxar……………………………………………………..……………..Petitioner Versus 1. The State Of Bihar through the Principal Secretary, Department of Welfare, Government of Bihar, Patna. 2. The Director, I.C.D.S. (Integrated Child Development Scheme), Patna. 3. The Commissioner, Patna Division, Patna. 4. The District Magistrate-cum-Collector, Buxar. 5. The Deputy Development Commissioner, Buxar. 6. The District Welfare Officer, Buxar. 7. The Sub-Divisional Officer, Buxar. 8. The Child Development Project Officer, Buxar. 9. Kiran Kumari, Wife of Kush Dhwaj Singh, Resident of Mohalla- Shikshak Colony Charitra Van, P.S. Buxar in the district of Buxar……………………………………………………………..Respondents ----------- 2 25.02.2011 Heard learned counsel for the petitioner as well as learned counsel for the respondents. Petitioner has challenged the order of the Collector dated 25.10.2007 as contained in Annexure-1 by which her engagement as Anganwari Sevika has been cancelled. She has also challenged the order of the Commissioner dated 03.08.2010 as contained in Annexure-2 by which her appeal was dismissed and the order of the Collector was confirmed. Primarily, petitioner has 2 challenged the order on the ground that before cancelling her engagement, there was gross violation of the Principles of Natural Justice inasmuch as after enquiry neither petitioner was given a copy of the enquiry report nor she was noticed by the Collector before the said order was passed. Prima facie, the submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner is correct. It does not appear from the records that before the order of the Collector was passed, any opportunity of hearing was given to the petitioner and there was any compliance of Principles of Natural Justice. However, necessity of application of Principles of Natural Justice has to be considered in context of facts and circumstances of the case and cannot be applied in all cases with a straight- jacket formula. From the order of the Collector it appears that petitioner’s engagement was cancelled on the ground that her name was later on inserted in the merit 3 list after signature of the competent authority and that in the Aam Sabha which selected the petitioner, only 11 villagers were present. The same ground has been taken into account by the Commissioner also in rejecting the appeal of the petitioner. Even if the stand of the petitioner is accepted that omission of her name from the merit list was a mistake which was later on corrected, there is nothing on record to show that in the Aam Sabha, necessary quorum was available. The Guidelines clearly provide that at least 10% of total number of adult members of the families of the beneficiary area has to be present in the Aam Sabha to constitute the quorum for selection of Anganwari Sevika and Aganwari Sahiyaka. This was clearly lacking in the selection of the petitioner and she also does not claim that the Aam Sabha had the quorum. In the circumstances, it is apparent that selection was made by the Aam Sabha which was not competent to 4 select the petitioner for want of quorum. Therefore, even if the order of the Collector is set aside and the matter is remitted back to him to hear the petitioner, the same will be an empty formality and nothing else. This writ application is, therefore, dismissed. BT (J. N. Singh, J.)