HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY W.P.No.31876 of 2010 Date : 23-2-2011 Between : N.Neelavathi w/o.N.Raghupathi .. Petitioner And The District Collector, Chittoor, Chittoor District and others .. Respondents Counsel for petitioner : Sri K.S.R. Murthy Counsel for respondent Nos.1 & 2 : A.G.P. for Panchayat Raj Counsel for respondent No.3 : None appeared The Court made the following : ORDER: This Writ Petition is filed for a mandamus to declare the inaction of respondent Nos.1 and 2 in responding to the petitioner’s representation for taking action against respondent No.3 as illegal and arbitrary. The petitioner sought for a consequential direction to the said respondents to initiate action against respondent No.3 and restrain him from raising a fence over the public road marked as ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’ in the sketch filed in the Writ Petition. In pursuance of the permission granted by this court, the learned counsel for the petitioner has served notice on respondent No.3 and filed a memo along with acknowledgement in proof of service. Despite service of notice, respondent No.3 has not entered appearance. It is the pleaded case of the petitioner that she is the owner of land admeasuring Ac.2-45 cents in Sy.Nos.192/4 and 192/5 of Gollapally village, Yadamari Mandal, Chittoor District, that respondent No.3 is in possession of DKT land in Sy.No.192/3, situated to the North of the petitioner’s land and that respondent No.3 is also in possession of grama kantam land in Sy.No.191/2. It is her further case that there is a cart track leading to Madanapalle Chittoor R & B Road and to the North of the said road, the petitioner has lands in Sy.Nos.85/8, 85/6, 85/7 and 91/4 and that through the cart track the petitioner reaches Sy.Nos.85/8 etc. from the lands in Sy.Nos.192/4 and 192/5. The grievance of the petitioner is that respondent No.3, who is the Sarpanch of the village, attempted to close the cart track between points ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, and ‘F’ as shown in the sketch by raising a fence and tried to occupy the cart track by merging the same in his land in S.No.192/3. Immediately, the petitioner is stated to have filed a representation on 15-11-2010 before respondent No.1. On coming to know about the same, respondent No.3 allegedly stopped construction of the fence and that again in the first week of December 2010, respondent No.3 resumed the said work. The petitioner is therefore constrained to file the present Writ Petition. No counter affidavit is filed on behalf of the respondents. In support of her plea, the petitioner relied upon Section 53 of A.P. Panchayat Raj Act 1994 (for short, "the Act") under which all public roads in the village other than National Highways, State Highways and roads vesting in Zilla Parishad or Mandal Parishad shall vest in the Gram Panchayat and it casts an obligation on the Gram Panchayat to take steps to remove encroachments on and prevent unauthorized use of any road other than a National Highway passing through the Gram Panchayat. At the hearing, the learned Assistant Government Pleader for Panchayat Raj stated that in view of the power vested in the Gram Panchayat under the above mentioned provision, the petitioner can approach the Gram Panchayat for redressal of her grievance. This submission of the learned Assistant Government Pleader overlooks the fact that respondent No.3 is no other than the Sarpanch of the Gram Panchayat and therefore the petitioner cannot ordinarily expect the Gram Panchayat to take action in a dispassionate manner against its Sarpanch. In the peculiar facts of this case, respondent No.2 is directed to consider the grievance of the petitioner and issue appropriate directions to the Gollapally Gram Panchayat for removal of the encroachments on public road in Sy.Nos.192/1, 2 and 3. Respondent No.2 shall treat the affidavit along with the sketch filed by the petitioner in this Writ Petition as her representation and ensure that the encroachment if any made by respondent No.3 over the public road is removed within one month from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. The Writ Petition is disposed of with the above directions. As a sequel to disposal of the Writ Petition, WPMP No.40525/2010 is disposed of as infructuous. ____________________ C.V.Nagarjuna Reddy.,J Date : 23-2-2011 AM