H J BOMMEGOWDA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) these and other connected writ petitions running into two or three thousand in number arc directed against four common entities who are arrayed as respondents in these writ petitions, their commonness extending even to their itemised positions in the petitions in that the state is arrayed as the first respondent in all these petitions, the deputy commissioners as respondent No. 2, the administrators as respondent No. 3 and the mandal panchayats as respondentno. 4. The common characteristic as aforesaid does not stop just there but spreads even to the factual aspects and the legal issues raised in every one of these writ petitions challenging the appointment of administrators to all the mandal panchayats existing in the state of karnalaka numbering in all about 2534 according to information furnished at the hearing of the writ petitions.

(2.) the petitioners in all these cases are the pradhans of the mandal panchayats. The office of a pradhan is an electoral one. He is elected by the members of the mandal panchayats who are themselves elected at an election held to constitute the mandal panchayat by the deputy commissioner of the district under the Karnataka zilla parishads, taluk panchayat samithis, mandal panchayats and nyaya panchayats Act, 1983 (hereinafter referred to as 'the act'). The pradhan holds that office so long as he remains a member of the panchayat, the term of office coinciding with the tenure of the respective mandal panchayat being 5 years. The petitioners herein were all duly elected and it is common ground that between the 6th of february, 1992, and 31st march, 1992 the tenure of office of all the mandal panchayats in the state having come to an end by operation of law, the erstwhile pradhans of the mandal panchayats became defunct. The pradhans, however, nurtured hopes of continuing in office as caretaker's till elections were held and concluded to elect a fresh batch of members who would constitute the mandal panchayats. That however, did not happen. In other words the authority designated to hold the elections did not opt to hold them either before or after the expiry of the tenure of the mandal panchayts but instead each one of the deputy commissioners of the 21 districts in the state of Karnataka with the exception of the districts of gulbarga and dharwad issued notifications purporting to stem from Section 8 of the act appointing officers of the state government as administrators to take over and run the mandal panchayats after completion of their tenure. It is these notifications or orders that has triggered off the massive exodus of these pradhans to the portals of this court claiming to be still in the saddle. The pradhans who were probably hoping to continue in office till the next elections to the mandal panchayats were held and completed, were however, taken aback by this unforeseen development made a beeline to the precincts of this court to challenge the orders of deputy commissioners appointing administrators to man the mandal panchayats. Their challenge to the appointment of administrators rested on two very simple grounds: i) the appointments are clearly untenable because some of the mandal panchayats had not completed their tenure in office; ii) no administrator could be appointed, without any step being taken to hold the elections. This court having issued notices to the state and other respondents, had stayed the operation of the orders appointing the administrators and the situation as of now is the appointment of administrators not being given effect to, the petitioners still continued as pradhans or rather as caretaker pradhans.

(3.) it is at this stage the state government promulgated ordinance No. 1 of 1992 under which it purported to repeal or delete from the statute book clause (2) of Section 44 of the act. The said ordinance promulgated on the 8th of january, 1992 was however repealed five days later by act No. 1 of 1992 under which a part of Section 8 of the act was amended, the repealing of clause (2) of Section 44 again reiterated. act 1 of 1992 also amended Section 135 and Section 162 and also enacted a new Section 277(3) making possible appointment of administrators to the zilla parishads but we are not concerned with all that. The amended act then went on to repeal the Karnataka ordinance 1 of 1992 at the same time providing for saving any action taken or anything done under the repealed ordinance. A significant feature to be noticed herein is, the act was given retrospective effect, tracing it back to 8th of january, 1992 the date on which ordinance No. 1 of 1992 was promulgated by the governor of karnataka. Armed with the ordinance and the Act, the government returned with vigour to the court and asked for vacating the interim orders made in these writ petitions. The court then asked the government to take a stand on the basis of the changes effected in the statute and accordingly the government filed a statement of objections which went on to set out the reasons that had led to the appointment of administrators resting it mainly on the inability of the executive to hold elections to the mandal panchayats in the light of certain developments that had taken place since.