Allahabad HC Directs State To Conduct Training Programs For Pradhans About Their Rights & Functions
The Allahabad High Court directed the State to conduct training programs for Pradhans about their rights & functions and to discourage the concept of pradhanpati.
The Court was hearing a bunch of Public Interest Litigations filed by a few villagers of the concerned village mainly opposing the construction of a water tank and in one case construction of the RCC Centre, on the land reserved in the concerned village for Charagaah, Gadahi, Naveen Parti, Khalihaan or other public purposes.
The bench of Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery observed, “…direction to concerned department to initiate some training programme for Pradhans within a period of three months from today, either on basis of Cluster or Commissionarate to make aware Pradhans, specifically women, about their rights and functions and to discourage concept of Pradhanpati.”
Advocate Hirdesh Kumar Yadav appeared for the Appellant and Additional Advocate General Manish Goyal appeared for the Respondent
The Court was surprised to note that none of the Pradhan knew about their functions, as mentioned in Section 15 of U.P. Panchayat Raj Act, 1947.
The Court discussed with the concerned parties and said, “since there is no change of Bhumidhari rights, therefore, on basis of resolution of Gaon Sabha if State has taken a decision to use a very small part of land for the purpose of construction of water tank or RCC Centre, out of the land marked for the purpose of Charagaah, Naveen Parti, Khalihaan etc. the bar of Section 77 of U.P. Revenue Code would not come in the way, except if it is shown that there is mala fide, which is not the case in present PILs.”
The Court did not find any merit to challenge the construction of the water tank and RCC Centre which according to the Court are also in the interest of villagers.
The Court further said that since land earmarked for the RCC centre is undisputedly a very small part of respective land, which does not render said land not useful for the said purpose as well that since no Bhumidhari right is created, therefore, bar under Section 77 of U.P. Revenue Code does not exist.
Finally, the Court observed that whenever even a very small part of an area, reserved for a public purpose, is used for another public purpose, the Gaon Sabha concerned and officials of the State will endeavour to make a larger consensus amongst the villagers so that they may not approach the Court to oppose the public cause.
Cause Title: Ambika Yadav v. State of UP (Neutral Citation: 2024:AHC:168876)
Appearance:
Appellant: Advovates Hirdesh Kumar Yadav, Madan Mohan Srivastava, Ram Bahadur Singh, Suneel Kumar Mishra, Vijay Kumar, Kunwar Bahadur Srivastava, Janardan Shukla and Udai Shankar Chauhan
Respondent: Additional Advocate General Manish Goyal, Advocate J.N. Maurya, Standing Counsels Ravi Anand Agarwal, Rajesh Kumar Tripathi, Advocates Bhupendra Kumar Tripathi, Hari Narayan Singh, Rameshwar Prasad Shukla, A.K. Pandey, Pankaj Kumar Gupta, Arun Kumar Pandey, Sudhir Bharti and Bhupendra Kumar Tripathi
