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Madhya Pradesh High Court · body

2007 DIGILAW 79 (MP)

Shasindra Kumar Mishra v. State of M. P.

2007-01-18

A.K.SHRIVASTAVA

body2007
ORDER 1. By this petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner is seeking following reliefs :- i. quash the order in Annexure P-3, list Annexure P-4 and Annexure P-5. ii. declare that the petitioner is deemed to be a member (law knowing person) of the Gram Nyayalaya Tatam and declare that the unanimous list Annexure P-2 is deemed to have been approved. iii. declare that the respondent No. 4 is not entitled and is not a member of the Gram Nyayalaya. 2. The case of petitioner is that he is a Law Graduate; practicing Advocate and is resident of village Matondha Choban which is within the Circle Tatam. The State Government has established Gram Nyayalaya throughout the State of M.P. In village Tatam a Gram Nyayalaya has been established. Under section 5 of the M.P. Gram Nyayalaya Adhiniyam, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Adhiniyam') Constitution of Gram' Nyayalaya has been mentioned and section 6 of the said Adhiniyam speaks about the qualification for membership of Gram Nyayalaya. Under this section no person shall be eligible for nomination as a member of Gram Nyayalaya unless he.- (a) has completed the age of 45 years on the date of nomination; (b) is ordinarily resident of the circle for which such Gram Nyayalaya is established; and (c) has passed fifth standard in case of woman and members belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Matriculation in case of others. 3. On bare perusal of section 5 of the said Adhiniyam it is revealed that every Gram Nyayalaya shall consist of seven members to be nominated by the Janpad Panchayat unanimously out of whom one shall be a "law knowing person" and in case the Janpad Panchayat fails to nominate any Decision reproduced in toto. member unanimously within sixty days from the date of establishment of Gram Nyayalaya under section 4, or from the date of occurrence of any vacancy, as the case may be, the State Government shall nominate such member. Under sub-section (2) of section 5, one seat each shall be reserved for persons belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. There is proviso to section 5 which provides that if no candidate belonging to any of these categories is available then the seat reserved for that category shall stand de-reserved. Under sub-section (2) of section 5, one seat each shall be reserved for persons belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. There is proviso to section 5 which provides that if no candidate belonging to any of these categories is available then the seat reserved for that category shall stand de-reserved. Under sub-section (3) one seat shall be reserved for women and shall be allotted by rotation to different categories. 4. Section 2 of the said Adhiniyam envisages definitions and "law knowing person" has been defined in Clause (i) which would mean that either a Law Graduate or a person having some elementary knowledge or experience in legal matters. 5. Janpad Panchayat Naugaon under which Tatam circle comes vide Annexure P-2 unanimously sent a list of nominated persons as members of Gram Nyayalaya. On bare perusal of the said list it is gathered that name of present petitioner as law knowing person is at Item No.7. However, the State Government instead of approving the name of present petitioner sent altogether a different list approving the names of persons to serve as members of the Gram Nyayalaya. The said order of the State Government is Annexure P-3. The contention of Shri Trivedi, learned counsel for the petitioner is that on going through Annexure P-3 nowhere it is gathered that any reason has been assigned by the respondent No.1 for not approving the name of the petitioner and hence the action of State Government is arbitrary. 6. The contention of Shri Sanjay Sarwate, learned counsel for the respondents 1 and 2 is that the age of petitioner is below 45 years and, therefore, his name was not approved and since the list did not include the name of any member of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backard Classes, therefore, the whole list was not approved. 7. The contention of Shri Umesh Trivedi, learned counsel for the petitioner is that the petitioner was fully qualified to be approved as a member law knowing person of the Gram Nyayalaya. 8. As noted hereinabove, the qualification has been prescribed in section 6 and one of the qualification is that a person must have completed the age of 45 years on the date of nomination. Admittedly, the age of petitioner was below 45 years when his name was nominated. 8. As noted hereinabove, the qualification has been prescribed in section 6 and one of the qualification is that a person must have completed the age of 45 years on the date of nomination. Admittedly, the age of petitioner was below 45 years when his name was nominated. True, there is a proviso that in case a law knowing person or women member of prescribed qualification is not available, then the minimum age may be reduced to 25 years. However, on going through the resolution of the Janpad Panchayt nowhere it is gathered that because no person having the age of 45 years or above was available, therefore, the name of petitioner was nominated. Thus, the nomination of petitioner by Janpad Panchayat was not in accordance to section 6 of the Adhiniyam. 9. I am not at all impressed by the contention of learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner was fully qualified and there is nothing in the return in order to show that now petitioner was not qualified. On bare perusal of section 6 it is revealed that the petitioner is not having requisite qualification for the approval of his name for member of the Gram Nyayalaya as law knowing person as his age was much below 45 years on the date of his nomination. True, respondent No. 4 Mahendra Pratap Gautam who has been approved as law knowing person was also not having age of 45 years and, therefore, it appears that his approval has been cancelled by the State Government and respondent No.5 Anand Prakash Tiwari has been approved as law knowing person and he is having age of 46 years., Merely because earlier, name of respondent No. 4 Mahendra Pratap Gautam was approved by respondent No.1 as law knowing person who was not having requisite qualification, as his age was 29 years i.e. below 45 years, would not confer any right in petitioner because Article 14 of the Constitution of India 'cannot be applied in negative manner. Apart from this the State Government realized its mistake and rectified it by approving the name of respondent No.5 Anand Prakash Tiwari having age of 46 years in place of respondent No.4 Mahendra Pratap Gautam. 10. For the reasons stated hereinabove, I do not find any merit in this petition and the same is hereby dismissed.