SARAT CHANDRA PRADHAN Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner in this writ application prays for declaration that the election of the members of the Project Committee is in contravention of the provisions contained in the Pani Panchayat Act, 2002 and the Rules made thereunder.

(2.) Case of the petitioner is that he is the elected President of Maa Kali Pani Panchayat under Baghua Irrigation Project. There are other 18 Presidents who have been elected from different Pani Panchayats and all these Pani Panchayats are under Baghua Irrigation Project. Every Pani Panchayat has three office bearers i.e. President, Secretary and Treasurer and they are also the General Body members of the Project Committee. All of them are required to elect 9 Executive Body Members as well as the President, Secretary and Treasurer of the Project Committee. According to the petitioner, Project Committee of Baghua Irrigation Project having 19 Pani Panchayats under it should consist of 57 members. However, the Chief Engineer, Irrigation Rushikulya, Bansadhara and Nagabali issued a notice to hold election of the Baghua Project Committee on 5.10.2008 at Kadamba Matha. In the corresponding notification, only 19 Pani Panchayat Presidents were directed to attend the meeting for the purpose of election of the President, Secretary and Treasurer of the Project Committee. Out of the 19 Presidents, who are members of General Body of the Project Committee, 16 filed their nominations. According to the provisions contained in the Act and the Rules, each nomination has to be proposed and seconded by two members and, therefore, in respect of 16 nominations it could not have been possible to propose and second, only 19 Presidents having been called for the purpose of election. According to the petitioner, had all the 57 members from 19 Pani Panchayats such as President, Secretary and Treasurer been called, each nomination could have at least one proposer and one seconder. It is also case of the petitioner that the election is supposed to be held at a public place, but the same was conducted in Kadamba Matha, which is the private property of one Kabiraj Gouda and therefore, holding of the election at such a place is null and void. The other ground on which the election is challenged is that though the provisions contained in the Act provided that the Chief Engineer should be the Election Officer, in the present case the Executive Engineer was appointed as the Election Officer. On the above three grounds the petitioner seeks to challenge the election of the President, Secretary and Treasurer of the Baghua Project Committee.

(3.) A counter affidavit has been filed by the opposite parties 1 to 6 and it is stated that in terms of Section 7(5) of Orissa Pani Panchayat Act, 2002 all the Presidents of the Pani Panchayats within the project area shall constitute a General Body for the Project Committee and accordingly, these 19 Presidents have formed the General Body of the Project Committee and they elected 9 members for the Executive Committee in terms of Section 8(1) of the Act. The President, Secretary and the Treasurer have been elected from amongst the members of the Executive Committee in terms of Section 8(2) and 8(6) of the Act.