V RAMACHARY Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application under Article 226 of the Constitution for the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to forbear from giving effect to the order of the second respondent, dated 20th October, 1963. The petition arises in the following circumstances; The petitioner was elected as the President of the Mannanur Tribal Panchayat Samithi of the Mahboobnagar di:trict in 1962. After he assumed the charge, he convened and held several meetings, one of such meetings was held nth January, 1963. Till that meeting was held, the law then existing did not impose any obligation on the President to convene a meeting at least once in a definite period. The law was amended for the first time on 15th January, 1963, namely, section 22 (7) of the Panchayat Samithis and Zilla Parishads Act, which is as follows :- Section 27 (7).-"It shall be the duty of the President or the person for the time being exercising the powers and performing the functions of the President to convene the meetings of the Panchayat Samithi so that at least one meeting of the Panchayat Samithi is held in every three months. If the President or such person fails to discharge that duty with the result that no meeting is held within the said period of three months or in the month following such period, he shall, with effect from the date of expiration of the month aforesaid, cease to be the President, or as the case may be, cease to exercise the powers and perform the functions of the President, unless such cessation has otherwise occurred before that date, and for a period of one year from such date he shall not be eligible to be elected as President or to exercise the powers and perform the functions of the President. "

(2.) The Block Development Officer put up a note to the President on 10th April, 1963 that the general body meeting of the Panchayat Samithi of Mannanur was conducted three month' back, and that a date for meeting may, therefore, be fixed at the earliest convenience, as there is an obligation to conduct a meeting once in three months. On the same date, the President endorsed the note " I am presently going on a tour to the villages to supervise the works of the Samithi. A meeting may accordingly be convened ". The meeting, however, was held on 21st May, 1963. Thereafter two meetings were held, one on 29th June, 1963 and the other on 24th September, 1963. The new Block Development Officer, who had assumed charge in the meanwhile seems to have reported to the Collector through his confidential letter dated I5th-October, 1963, perhaps, complaining that the petitioner had failed to discharge his duty to convene a meeting in pursuance of the amended provision of law and he has thus incurred disqualification to hold the President's post. The Collector, in pursuance of his letter, declared on 26th October, 1963 that the petitioner has ceased to be the President of the Panchayat Samithi in view of section 27 of the Act.

(3.) It is this order of the Collector that is now challenged in this Writ Petition. The principal contention of Mr. Y. Sivarama Sastry, the learned Counsel for the petitioner, is that, the expression " at least one meeting of the Panchayat Samithi is held in every three months " should be construed to mean that any meeting held shall be deemed to have been held for three calendar months. His contention is that, the meeting which was held on nth January, 1963 should be deemed to have been held for three months ending the month of March} 1963. On this basis, he argues that the next meeting could be held within three months from the month of February, and if this period is thus calculated and one month grace which is allowed under sub-section (7) of section 22 is taken into account, the petitioner has not incurred any disqualification. The same argument is put in another way that although the amendment came into force on 15th January, 1963, I should compute the period on the abovesaid lines from 1st January, 1963. I am unable to accept this contention. It is now a fairly settled rule of law that the ordinary and normal meaning should be given to a provision of law without straining the language or doing any violence to it. If we apply this principle of construction to sub-section (7) of section 22, it leaves no one in doubt that the expression " so that at least one meeting of the Panchayat Samithi is held in every three months " has to be understood to mean that computation of three months would begin from the date of the last meeting. If this construction is correct, as I understand it to be, then in this case we have to calculate from nth January, 1963, as the last meeting was held on that date. That date cannot, however, be taken as ihe basic date obviously because on that date there was no obligation on the part of the President to convene any meeting at least once in three months. Such obligation was, for the first time, cast upon him on 15th January, 1963. The computation in this case, the 'efore, will have to be made not from, 11th January 1963, but from 15th January, 1963. In either case, it makes a little difference as far as the result is concerned. The petitioner, therefore, ought to have convened a meeting in three months either from nth January, 1963 or from 15th January, 1963 when the amended provision came into force. When the next meeting was held admitted' on 21st May 1963. calculated in any one of the two ways, it wa,s admittedly held beyond the prescribed period of three months. Even if the grace period of one month allowed by the subsection (7) is calculated, the meeting ought to have been held on or before 15th May, 1963. When once the President failed to hold the meeting as above, by virtue of sub-section (7) of section 22 of the Act he automatically incurs the disqualification. It is not necessary for any officer to pass any order declaring that he is disqualified. If he has failed to hold the meeting as directed under section 22 (7), that provision of law comes immediately into operation and the President gets disqualified automatically. I am not, therefore, prepared to accept the argument that the meeting held on 11th January, 1963 should be deemed to have been held for the first quarter of the year, and for the purposes of calculating the period for holding the second meeting the computation should be made from February, 1963. There is no warrant or any justification for such calculation. The argument that month means English calendar month, or calender month means the number of days fixed in a particular month, does not assist in any way the petitioner in supporting his contention. The contention that " once in every three months " should mean three months according to the English calendar commencing from first of every month for the purposes of section 22 (7) cannot thus be accepted. Whatever may be the date of the last meeting, the period of three months will have to be counted from that date. I find no difficulty in computing the period in this manner. There is no justification in either relating it back to the first of the month or postpone it to the first of the next month in order to compute the period. This argument is not supported by any authority or provision of law. If this argument is accepted, it would produce extraordinary results, which would defeat the very purpose of the amendment. It is beyond doubt that the new provision was added only to make the President more active and keep the institution lively and working. Experience had shown that the meetings were not called even once in three months. This was contrary to the principles of the local Government. The chief merit of a free local body is the initiative, intelligence and a team work which it develops in its organisation and in its functioning. Lack of interest and qualities of leadership in the President will destroy all that is necessary for the balanced development of a Gram Panchayat. Such a President lethargic in his primary duties will frustrate the very purpose of this foundation of the entire democratic structure. One of the objects of the Village Panchayat Act is to develop this local self-governing institution as an efficient instrument of administration capable alike of formulating polices and of executing them. In order to achieve this it is necessary to keep the Panchayats alert and active. The Legislature, therefore, thought that there should be a statutory obligation on the President, who is statutorily bound to convene meetings to convene a meeting at least once in three months. We will not, therefore, so construe the provision as to increase the period of three months for the purposes of holding a meeting, as that will be derogatory to the very language and concept of the amendment and would frustrate its purpose. The true construction, therefore, would be to hold that the President is now under a statutory obligation to convene the next meeting within three months from the date of the last meeting. He may, however, hold the meeting during the period of these three months on any day he likes. But he certainly cannot transgress the limit of three months laid down under section 22 (7) of the Act. Any interpretation which extends the period beyond three months obviously cannot be accepted as correct. The contention of the learned Advocate, if accepted, would produce only that result. I am, therefore, satisfied that by holding the meeting on 2 1st May, 1963, the petitioner had failed to discharge the duty put on him under section 22 (7) of the Act. He has thus immediately incurred the disqualification on 15th May, 1963 because that was the last date which was allowed to him to hold the said meeting under the amended provision. The order of the Collector, therefore, would only mean that the petitioner would discontinue to hold the post of the President, because that is the result of the law and not the result of the Collector's order.