Shital Rai And Ors. vs The State Of Bihar Through ... on 7 March, 1990
28. A Division Bench of this Court has taken a contrary view of the matter in Bhola Chaudhary v. The State of Bihar, 1988 PLJR 692. That case has occasioned reference of these applications to the Full Bench. In this case the prayer was for issuance of a writ of quo warranto or any appropriate direction for removing the Mukhia of Dhobani Ramauli Gram Panchayat. That Gram Pan-chayat, which had been established in June, 1960, initially consisted of seven villages. In the election held in June, 1978 respondent No. 3 of that petition has been elected Mukhia. In course of time he was also elected pramukh of the concerned Panchayat Samiti. In October, 1985, the Government issued a notification altering the territorial area and local limits of the said Gram Panchayat by taking out five villages out of the seven original villages which constituted the Gram Panchayat. Dhobani-Ramauli Gram Panchayat thereafter consisted of only two vil-lages-Dhobani and Ramauli. Another notification was issued notifying the setting up of Sisai Gram Panchayat consisting of five villages which were originally part of Dhobani-Ramauli Gram Panchayat. Consequent upon the notification issued in terms of Section 3(3) of Panchayat Raj Act, two Gram Panchayats came into existence -- one was Dhobani-Ramauli Gram Panchayat and other was Sisai Gram Panchayat. Consequent upon the notifications the erstwhile Mukhia ceased to be member of Dhobani Ramauli Gram Panchayat as his village formed part of Sasai Gram Panchayat but he continued to function as Mukhia of Dhobani Ramauli Gram Panchayat. His functioning as such was challenged by the application for issuance of a writ of quo warranto and for a direction for removal of the Mukhia. The question which fell for consideration in that application was whether Dhobani Ramauli Gram Panchayat was a newly established Gram Panchayat or whether it was an old Gram Panchayat. If it, was held to be a newly established Gram Panchayat, the erstwhile Mukhia -- the respondent of that application, would have no
jurisdiction to function as Mukhia of Dhobani Ramauli Gram Panchayat and the Collector would have to nominate a Mukhia in terms of proviso to Section 10. In that case at paragraph 7 Ram Nandan Prasad, J. with S. Ali Ahmad J. observed that there was no doubt that if the altered Dhobani Ramaui Gram Panchayat had to be regarded as a newly established Gram Panchayat the contention of the petitioner of the application had to be upheld, The contention that it was newly established Gram Panchayat was rejected. The reasons for holding that it was not a newly established Gram Panchayat were as follows (at page 695; 1988 PLJR) :--