B NAGESWAR REDDY Vs. DIST COLLECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is the President of Balapanur Distributory Committee-I. The elections to the Managing Committee were conducted by the District Collector as provided for under Sections 4 and 8 of the A.P. Fanners Management of Irrigation Systems Act, 1997 (for short 'the Act'). The petitioner was served with a notice on 24-12-1998 by the second respondent requesting him to attend the meeting proposed to be held on 2-1-1999 at the office of the D.L. Sub-division, Ankalamma Gudur to replace the petitioner as President of Balapanur Distributory Committee-I. It is the said notice that is impugned in this writ petition on various grounds.

(2.) Section 5 of the Act authorises the Government to delineate every command area of the irrigation system comprising of one or more Water Users' Associations and declare the same to be a distributory area for the purpose of this Act, There shall be a distributory committee for every distributory area and all the Presidents of the Water User Associations in that distributory area shall constitute general body of the Committee. Section 6 of the Act provides for the election of the President and constitution of the Managing Committee for every distributory committee. Section 10 of the Act prescribes procedure for recall of Chairman or President or Member of a Managing Committee, as the case may be, of the Fanners' Organisation and the Farmers' Organisation shall mean and include the Water Users' Association at the primary level, distributory committee at the secondary level and project committee at the project level.

(3.) In the instant writ petition, we are concerned with the Fanners' Organisation at the secondary level. According to the procedure prescribed under Section 10 of the Act a motion for recalling a Chairman or President or a Member of a Managing Committee of Farmers' Organisation is required to be made by giving a written notice as prescribed and signed by not less than one-third of the total number of members of the organisation. If the motion is carried with the support of the majority of the members present for voting at the meeting of the general body specially convened for the purpose, the District Collector or the Government as the case may be shall by order remove the concerned from office. However, no notice of motion under Section 10 can be made within one year of the date of assumption of the office by the person against whom the motion is sought to be moved.