HC dismisses plea on Rae Bareli panchayat no-trust motion

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has dismissed a writ petition that sought rescheduling of a meeting for a no-confidence motion against the Rae Bareli zila panchayat chairman and security for its members.

The meeting was initially scheduled on May 14, 2019 but was deferred after many members failed to reach the zila panchayat auditorium to participate in a floor test that day. The adjournment had coincided with an attack on the convoy of Rae Bareli MLA Aditi Singh and several panchayat members.

A division bench of justice Pankaj Kumar Jaiswal and justice Alok Mathur passed the judgment on December 10 on a petition filed by Rakesh Kumar and other persons.

The question that arose as a result of the petition was whether under the provisions of sub-section 12 of Section 28 of the UP Kshetra Panchayat and Zila Panchayat Adhiniyam, 1961, the district magistrate was obliged to adjourn the meeting on May14, 2019 at 11am in the circumstances under which the petitioners and other elected members were allegedly disabled from attending the meeting or obstructed by force from exercising their right to take part in the same meeting.

The petitioners were elected members of the Rae Bareli zila panchayat. The Rae Bareli zila panchayat has 52 elected members.

Under the leadership of the petitioner Rakesh Kumar, a proposal was passed on April 10, 2019 by 31 elected members for tabling a no-confidence motion against zila panchayat chairman Avadhesh Singh, who is the brother of Dinesh Singh, MLC.

Dismissing the plea, the court said, “ ...... We find no substance in the plea that the elected members were obstructed by the opposite side and because of that they could not attend the meeting of the no confidence motion on 14.5.2019 at 11am and the reasons were beyond their control and the learned presiding officer should not have presided with the meeting and instead of dissolving the same for want of quorum, he could have fixed

the meeting for some other date.”

The petitioners had also sought directions to provide proper security to the zila panchayat members and reschedule the meeting as it could not be held due to an alleged attack on the convoy of Congress MLA Aditi Singh in Bachhrawan and Rae Bareli.

The counsel for the petitioners had submitted that voting on the no- confidence motion was earlier scheduled on May14,2019 but it could not be held due to the influence of respondents, including Avadhesh Singh

Earlier, it had been alleged that the no-confidence motion was put off on one pretext or the other.

On May 11, 2019, the court had directed the petitioners to move a no-confidence motion in proper format. Thereafter, a meeting was fixed on May 14 but Avadhesh Singh managed to prevent the zila panchayat members from attending the meeting leading to its adjournment due to lack of quorum, the petitioner’s counsel had alleged. Additional chief standing counsel HP Srivastav had contended that security had been provided to each member of the zila panchayat.