MEERA DEVI Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITIONER- Smt. Meera Devi, elected as Pradhan of Gram Panchayat Jalalpur, Vikas Khand Majhawan, District Mirzapur in the last election held in April 1995, has filed the present petition, seeking the relief of quashing the entire proceeding of motion of no-confidence dated 24-8-1997, held in pursuance of the order dated 2-8-1997 of the District Panchayat Raj Officer, Mirzapur under Section 14 of the U. P. Panchayat Raj Act, 1947 (In short the 'act') read with Rule 33-B of the Rules made under the Act.

(2.) CONCEDEDLY, the concerned Gram Panchayat is a body consisting of 13 elected members to the exclusion of the petitioner. All the elected members were present in the meeting and they exercised the right to vote on the motion of no-confidence, brought to bear against the petitioner. The petitioner was kept at bay from voting. Nine out of thirteen voted in favour and four against the motion of no- confidence. As a result, the petitioner stood expelled from her office as Pradhan. Sri Sanjai Kumar Singh, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner circumscribed his contentions to only two points in support of the relief claimed in the writ petition; first, that the petitioner was entitled to cast her vote in the meeting by virtue of her being a member of the Gram Panchayat in view of Sec. 12 (6) of the Act. The learned counsel urged that the removal of the petitioner by motion of no confidence is vitiated since she was not permitted to cast her vote. The second point canvassed by the learned counsel was that in case the requisite two-thirds of the members presenting and voting, falls short by any fraction of vote, then in that event, the fraction will have to be rounded up to the nearest whole number for the purposes of determining the requisite majority of two-thirds.

(3.) IN view of the aforestated discussions, I am of the considered view that where two-thirds majority of the members present and voting falls short by a fraction, in that eventuality, motion would be deemed to have fallen to the ground. IN the instant case, the petitioner was admittedly present in the meeting but she was not allowed to cast her vote and in the circumstances, for all practical purposes, she would be deemed to be present and voting and if her vote is reckoned, then two-thirds of 14 members would be equal to 9. 33 as against which only nine votes polled in favour of motion would not constitute requisite majority of two-thirds of the members present and voting. By applying the principle of rounding off, the requisite majority of two-thirds would be ten votes. The declaration that motion of no- confidence was carried in the meeting held on 24-8-1997 does not commend itself to be sustained.