HEMAVATHI LAXMAGOWDA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant before us is an elected member of the Balappa Gram Panchayat in Sulia Taluk, Dakshina Kannada District and, she was also elected as the Adhyaksha of the Panchayat. It is her case that a No-confidence Motion was submitted and the usual allegation has been made to the effect that this No-confidence Motion was vitiated by certain mala fide reasons which are common in politics. Pursuant to the submission of this No-confidence Motion, the Assistant Commissioner who is respondent 2 fixed a meeting on 26-5-2001 and the appellant originally filed writ Petition No. 19717 of 2001 questioning the action but the writ petition came to be dismissed by this Court. Thereafter, the appellant filed a second Writ Petition No. 24590 of 2001 which is the present writ petition wherein a two-fold contention has been raised, the first being that there is a violation of sub-rules (5) and (6) of Rule 3 of the Karnataka Panchayat Raj (Motion of No-confidence against Adhyaksha and upadyaksha of Gram Panchayat) Rules, 1994. Essentially, what had been contended was that it is a mandatory requirement that the meeting must be convened within a period of thirty days and secondly, that the relevant rules also provide for a situation where by the meeting in question cannot be adjourned for any reason. The third ancillary contention raised was that if for any reason the No-confidence Motion does not go through, that then it is not permissible to reconvene the meeting for consideration of the No-confidence Motion for a period of one year. The learned Single Judge negatived the submission canvassed and dismissed the writ petition. One of the interesting aspects of the case that has gone heavily against the appellant who was the original petitioner is the fact that when the meeting for consideration of the No-confidence Motion was convened, she submitted the letter of resignation and since the resignation was submitted, the No-confidence Motion was not taken up for consideration. The interesting position was that the resignation was to take effect prospectively i. e. , after ten days and the appellant thereafter withdrew the resignation. Her contention therefore is that she continues as the Adhyaksha and that it is not permissible for the respondent 2 to reconvene the meeting for consideration of the same no-confidence Motion. The meeting in question has been convened on 1-9-2001 and, the appellant has applied for urgent interim orders on the ground that it is not permissible to either reconvene the meeting or to consider the same No-confidence Motion.

(2.) WE have heard the appellant's learned Advocate as also the learned Government Advocate on merits. The first submission canvassed by the appellant's learned Advocate is that the learned Single judge has virtually passed strictures against the appellant on the ground that she has played a fraud on the authorities by submitting a resignation and then withdrawing the resignation. His submission is that the appellant had every right to submit a resignation and furthermore, that before the resignation takes effect, that the appellant was equally entitled in law to revoke that position or withdraw the resignation and if the appellant had done so, then it was totally unjustified for the learned Single Judge to categories this action as an act of fraud. Reliance has been placed on a decision of the Apex Court Union of India v Gopal Chandra Misra and Others1, wherein, the Apex Court had occasion to consider the question of a general principle regarding resignation and to hold that a prospective resignation could always be withdrawn within the prescribed period of time. There is absolutely no doubt about the correctness of this proposition but we need to add a rider namely that if the submission of a resignation and a withdrawal thereafter takes place under circumstances that appear to pass legal scrutiny and furthermore, if the motive is perfectly bona fide then the principle in question would apply. If this is done under circumstances which are suspicious and if the only legitimate inference is that this was done in order to secure an unfair advantage or furthermore, if it is under circumstances which appear to be mischievous then it certainly cannot be contended that the action was valid and bona fide. In situations such as this, it is equally incumbent on the party concerned to satisfy the judicial forum that the circumstances were honest and bona fide and in the absence of this, the Court will be left with no option except to draw an appropriate inference on the facts in record. In the present instance, the learned Single Judge has taken cognizance of the fact that the meeting was convened for purposes of considering the No-confidence Motion against the appellants. What the outcome of the meeting would have been cannot be prejudged and, this court is not concerned with it. The fact of the matter is that when a No-confidence Motion had been tabled and when the meeting had been convened for consideration of the No confidence Motion, the appellant who was the Adhyaksha was equally obliged, to have faced that motion and was well-within her rights to have established that the body still had confidence in her or that she enjoyed the majority support etc. In the present instance, virtually in order to sabotage the meeting the appellant submitted the resignation and there can be no two opinions about the fact that the letter of resignation was only for purposes of ensuring that the No-confidence Motion was not taken up. This being the situation, the entire issue gets far more compounded and complicated and we find that after the meeting was dropped, that the appellant withdrew the resignation. It may be true that the appellant was technically entitled to withdraw the resignation letter but in the absence of her being able to satisfy the Court that there was a genuine and valid ground for this conduct, it would be totally out of place for us to interfere with the finding recorded by the learned single Judge under this head. We need to add that having reconsidered the facts as far as the conduct of the appellant is concerned that we need to further hold that the submission of the resignation and the immediate withdrawal thereafter was far from honesty.

(3.) THE aforesaid finding would have a bearing on the finding with regard to the other two main challenges presented by the appellant's Counsel. Firstly, the contention is that under the relevant rules which we have referred to, there is a total bar under sub-rules (5) and (6) for the meeting to be adjourned and the submission is that in not having proceeded with the meeting, it is deemed that respondent 2 has adjourned the same. We are unable to uphold this contention for the simple reason that it was the appellant who virtually sabotaged the holding of the meeting, no meeting had commenced and consequently, there can be no question of any adjournment having taken place. What in fact happened is that no meeting was at all necessary for the simple reason that the objective of the No-confidence Motion was in order to remove the appellant from office and had the motion succeeded, the appellant would have had to vacate office. The appellant on the other hand submitted a letter of resignation which is tantamount to vacating office and consequently, the respondent 2 was fully justified in having totally dropped the meeting. An adjournment of a meeting presupposes the fact that the business is incomplete or for any other valid reason if the meeting is stopped and it is decided to continue with it at some future point of time, under these circumstances, we need to hold that the objection raised with regard to sub-rules (5) and (6) is totally unjustified.