Nafe Singh vs The State of Haryana and others

M.M. Punchhi, J.—The Petitioner is a voter of the Gram Sabha Kiroli, district Sonepat. He has approached this Court to challenge the constitution of the Gram Sabha and the election of its members on the ground that it is violative of the provisions of Sections 5 and 6 of the Punjab Oram Panchayat Act (as applicable to Haryana).

The facts are these:

On June 30, 1988, the State of Haryana issued a notification u/s 5 of the said Act, establishing a Gram Sabha for village Kiroli, comprising of five members inclusive of the Sarpanch. Out of the four Panchas, one was to be a Scheduled Caste. Now the provision of a Scheduled Caste member, as conceded to by the contending parties was totally unnecessary because not a single Scheduled Caste lived in the village. Therefore, though the proviso to Sub-section (4) of Section 5 did provide that every Gram Panchayat shall, subject to to the provisions of Sub-clause (b), have one Panch in a Gram Panchayat belonging to the Scheduled Castes if their population was 5 percent or more of the population of the Sabha area concerned, but since this was no population of the Scheduled Castes in the village as said earlier, this provision need not have been evoked. The fact remains that the election took place and, four members of the general category were elected out of the general category candidates as Panches of the Panchayat. Now the Petitioner contends that since the notification categorically prescribed the election of a Scheduled Caste candidate as one of the Panchas, the election as a whole is vitiated. Reliance has been placed on Khushi Ram v. State of Punjab 1980 P.L.J. 2(sci)2, and Mehar Chand and Anr. v. Shri T.D. Sharma 1980 P.L.J. 671, to contend that in somewhat similar circumstances the election as a whole was quashed. The learned Deputy Advocate General, Haryana, states that though there is a mistake in the notification in providing a Scheduled Caste Panch, still it was an irregularity which the Petitioner cannot be allowed to make capital of at this stage. Same is the defence of the learned Counsel for the private Respondents.

So far as the aforesaid two judicial precedents are concerned, they are in a different set of facts. In those two cases, the requisite 5 per cent Scheduled Caste population was existing in the village and in ignoring the same the notifications constituting the Panchayat had not made a provision for their representation. That error, this Court held to be enough to vitiate the entire procedure. Now here the factual position is not disputed that there is no Scheduled Caste living in the village. So the provision for a Scheduled Caste Panch was a surplus age and otiose. Even, otherwise, the election is one and there is reservation as such in favour of a Scheduled Caste. It is only in the matter of declaring the result that it has to be seen as to whether a Scheduled Caste is winning or not and then make him win Since in the instance case, there was no Scheduled Caste who could come forward to contest the-election, it cannot be said that the fourth Panch in the Panchayat could not be of the general category. The sole purpose for the creation of the Panchayat is to have a representative body of the people looking about the day to day affairs of the village community and for the purposes envisaged under the Gram Panchayat Act. In this situation we fail to see what injustice has been done to the Petitioner to upset the electoral process which has fructified in the election of a Panchayat which was, other-wise intended to be elected.

For the foregoing reasons, find no merit in this petition and dismiss the same in limine.

Sd/- S.S. Grewal, J.