Case: Village Panchayat Calangute Vs. Additional Director Of Panchayat Ii

is a body corporate. If so it can sue or be sued. In that position Panchayat cannot be denuded of the right to move under Art. 226 of the Constitution when any of its legal right is infringed by the authorities including the Government.” 23. In High Court of M.P. v. Mahesh Prakash and others (1995) 1 SCC 203 , this Court considered several questions including the one whether the High Court has the locus to challenge the order passed on judicial side by filing a petition under Article 136 of the Constitution. While rejecting the decision of the High Court, this Court observed: “The order that the first respondent challenged in the writ petition filed by him before the High Court was an order passed by the High Court on its administrative side. By reason of Article 226 of the Constitution it was permissible for the appellant to move the High Court on its judicial side to consider the validity of the order passed by the High Court on the administrative side and issue a writ in that behalf. In the writ petition the first respondent was obliged to implead the High Court for it was the order of the High Court that was under challenge. It was, therefore, permissible for the High Court to prefer a petition for special leave to appeal to this Court against the order on the writ petition passed on its judicial side. The High Court is not here to support the judicial order its Division Bench passed but to support its administrative order which its Division Bench set aside. We find, therefore, no merit in what may be termed the preliminary objection to the maintainability of the appeal.” 24. In State of Orissa v. Union of India 1995 Supp. (2) SCC 154, the Court considered the question whether the State Government has locus standi to challenge the order passed by the Central Government in exercise of its revisional power under the Mineral Concession Rules, 1960. While answering the question in affirmative, this Court observed: “In this connection, it is necessary to note that in the first place, the State Government is not merely an authority subordinate to the Central Government which would, undoubtedly, be bound by the revisional orders of the superior authority. It is also the owner of the mines and minerals in question. If it is directed to issue a mining lease in favour of any party, it has locus standi to challenge that order under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.” 25. In Godde Venkateswara Rao v. Government of Andhra Pradesh AIR 1966 SC 828 , this Court examined the issue of locus standi of a President of Panchayat Samithi to challenge the decision of the Government in the matter of location of Primary Health Centre and held: “Article 226 confers a very wide power on the High Court to issue directions and writs of the nature mentioned therein for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by Part III or for any other purpose. It is, therefore, clear that persons other than those claiming fundamental right can also approach the court seeking a relief thereunder. The Article in terms does not describe the classes of persons entitled to apply thereunder; but it is implicit in the exercise of the extraordinary jurisdiction that the relief asked for must be one to enforce a legal right. The right that can be enforced under Art. 226 also shall ordinarily be the personal or individual right of the petitioner himself, though in the case of some of the writs like habeas corpus or quo warranto this rule may have to be relaxed or modified.Has the appellant a right to file the petition out of which the present appeal has arisen? The appellant is the President of the Panchayat Samithi of Dharmajigudem. The villagers of Dharmajigudem formed a committee with the appellant as President for the purpose of collecting contributions from the villagers for setting up the Primary Health Center. The said committee collected Rs.10,000/- and deposited the same with the Block Development Officer. The appellant represented the village in all its dealings with the Block Development Committee and the Panchayat Samithi in the matter of the location of the Primary Health Center at Dharmajigudem. His conduct, the acquiescence on the part of the other members of the committee, and the treatment meted out to him by the authorities concerned support the inference that he was authorized to act on behalf of the committee. The appellant was, therefore, a representative of the committee which was in law the trustees of the amounts collected by it from the villagers for a public purpose. We have, therefore, no hesitation to hold that the appellant had the right to maintain the application under Art. 226 of the Constitution. This Court held in the decision cited supra that "ordinarily" the petitioner who seeks to file an application under Art. 226 of the Constitution should be one who has a personal or individual right in the subject-matter of the petition. A personal right need not be in respect of a proprietary interest : it can also relate to an interest of a trustee. That apart, in exceptional cases, as the expression "ordinarily" indicates, a person who has been prejudicially affected by an act or omission of an authority can file a writ even though he has no proprietary or even fiduciary interest in the subject matter thereof. The appellant has certainly been prejudiced by the said order. The petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution at his instance is, therefore, maintainable.” 26. By applying the ratio of the aforesaid judgments to the facts of these cases, we hold that the writ petitions filed by the appellant were maintainable and the learned Single Judge of the High Court committed grave error by summarily dismissing the same. We also declare that the contrary view expressed by the High Court in other judgments does not represent the correct legal position.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 1

Explanation:
1[ds]20. In this case, the appellant had entertained the complaint made by local residents, revoked occupancy certificate and also cancelled the permission granted to the company for raising construction. The resolution cancelling the permission was recalled apparently because the rules of natural justice had not been followed. Thereafter, the Sarpanch issued notice under Section 64 and directed the company to stop further construction. The company challenged the notice and succeeded in persuading respondent No.1 to pass an ex-parte interim order. The application made by the company for permission to use the property for running a Guest House was rejected by the appellant because legality of the construction made by the company was under scrutiny. In both the cases, respondent No.1 set aside the resolutions passed by the appellant as also the notice issued by the Sarpanch. The orders passed by respondent No.1 do not refer to the particular provision under which the concerned officer was exercising the appellate power. Surely, he could not have exercised the power vested in the appellate authority under Section 201 because the source of power of the resolutions passed by the appellant and the notice issued by the Sarpanch cannot be traced in Sections 76, 77, 84, 104 and 105 of the Act which relate to removal of any building or part thereof or any tree or branch of a tree if it is in a ruinous state or is likely to fall or is otherwise dangerous to any person occupying such building or part thereof or matters relating to sanitation, conservancy and drainage or exercise of power by the Secretary in relation to any well, stream, channel, tank or other source of water supply or which postulates right to carry drain through land or into drain belonging to other persons. Similarly, respondent No.1 cannot be said to have exercised power under Section 201-A because under that provision, only the Block Development Officer is competent to entertain an appeal in a miscellaneous matter which is dealt with by the Panchayat or the Village Panchayat Secretary or the Sarpanch and against which no appeal has been specifically provided under the Act. Therefore, it is reasonable to infer that respondent No.1 had exercised power under Section 178(1). However, instead of suspending the execution of the resolutions passed by the appellant or the notice issued by the Sarpanch and sending the matter to the State Government for confirmation, the concerned officer suo-moto annulled the resolutions and the notice by assuming that he had the power to do so.21. It is thus evident that while the appellant and the Sarpanch had exercised their respective powers in public interest, respondent No.1 nullified that exercise because he felt that the resolution/action was contrary to law and was unjustified. While exercising the power under the Act, the Panchayat was not acting as a subordinate to respondent No.1 but as a body representing the will of the people and also a body corporate in terms of Section 8 of the Act. Therefore, it had the locus to challenge the orders passed by respondent No.1 and the High Court was clearly in error in holding that the writ petition was nothold that the writ petitions filed by the appellant were maintainable and the learned Single Judge of the High Court committed grave error by summarily dismissing the same. We also declare that the contrary view expressed by the High Court in other judgments does not represent the correct legal position.