(a)The general duties of dafadars and chaukidars are set forth in sections 39 and 40 of the Village Chaukidari Act, 1870, in the rules in section VI of the Chaukidari Manual, in section 23 of the Village Self-Government Act, 1919, in rules 36 and 38 of the Chaukidari Rules framed under that Act and in the rules in Part III(B) of the Union Board Manual, Volume II.(b)Under section 23(viii) of the Village Self-Government Act, 1919, or section 39 (9th) of the Village Chaukidari Act, 1870, the officer-in-charge of a police-station shall direct all chaukidars to bring to the station immediate information of the occurrence of any large fire, storm or inundation and any damage to telegraph posts or wires. He shall also require them to report immediately when the condition of any river, road or crop is such that a serious calamity may be apprehended. The chaukidars of Panchayati unions will be required, in addition to the above information, to report the outbreak of any epidemic among human beings or cattle and, from time to time, the condition of the standing crops.(c)All officers shall be careful to enforce the responsibility of dafadars for the work and conduct of the chaukidars under them. If there are two or more dafadars in a union, the officer-in-charge of the police-station shall endeavour to persuade the local authority of that union to define the responsibility of each dafadar. Every excuse or reason offered by a chaukidar for any breach of duty shall as far as possible be verified either by the dafadar concerned or by a member of the police-station staff.(d)Any report received either from the dafadar or the Panchayat about the disappearance of, or damage to, the village boundary marks, shall be entered in the general diary and forwarded to the Collector for disposal. Unless specially ordered by the District Magistrate, the police shall not investigate charges of mischief in respect to boundary marks, but they shall, while moving about in the interior, see whether the marks are in their places and report to the Collector any defect noticed.
