Court No. - 5
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 26895 of 2020 Petitioner :- Smt. Zulekha Respondent :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Petitioner :- Azim Ahmad Kazmi Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Saral Srivastava,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Anuj Pratap Singh, learned Standing Counsel for the State-respondents.
The petitioner was an elected Gram Pradhan of Village Akauna, Block Gohand, Tehsil Rath, District Hamirpur.
It appears that a preliminary inquiry was conducted against the petitioner for the irregularities committed by her in discharging her duties and for embezzlement of certain amount regarding distribution of funds of toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) Programme which have been sanctioned for construction of toilets, but toilets were not constructed.
On preliminary inquiry, the charges levelled against the petitioner was found proved. Accordingly, a show cause notice was issued to the petitioner under Section 95 (1) (g) of the U.P.Panchayat Raj Act, 1947 to explain as to why her financial power be not seized. The petitioner in this regard submitted detailed reply dated 3.11.2020 which is annexure-11 to the writ petition.
The respondent No. 2-District Magistrate, Hamirpur did not found substance in the objection/reply of the petitioner and accordingly, rejected the same and passed the order dated 25.11.2020 seizing the financial power of the petitioner.
Challenging the aforesaid order, learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the order impugned is illegal and cannot be sustained inasmuch as the petitioner has filed detailed reply giving detailed explanation regarding utilization of funds and all the charges are false and incorrect, but the respondent No. 2 failed to consider the objection against the show cause notice submitted by the petitioner. Therefore, the order impugned being non speaking cannot be sustained in law.
Learned Standing Counsel though has tried to defend the order impugned but could not point out from the record that the order impugned contained any reason for rejecting the objection submitted by the petitioner in response to the show cause notice.
A perusal of the order impugned clearly reflects that the same is non speaking and without application of mind, therefore, in the facts of the present case, this Court finds it appropriate to set aside the order impugned with liberty to the respondent No. 2- District Magistrate, Hamirpur to pass order afresh after giving due notice and opportunity of hearing to the petitioner within a period of three months from the date of production of copy of this order.
For the reasons given above, the writ petition is allowed.
In view of the fact that due to the pandemic of COVID-19, the certified copy is not being issued by the High Court, therefore, the order downloaded from the website duly certified by learned counsel for the petitioner may be treated as true copy of the order and the Authority may not refuse to comply the order on the ground of non filing of certified copy of the order.
Order Date :- 5.1.2021 Jaswant Digitally signed by Justice Saral Srivastava Date: 2021.01.09 13:46:35 IST Reason: Document Owner Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad