The central legal point established in the judgment is that the definition of public demand under the Public Demand Recovery Act must be strictly interpreted, and proceedings without jurisdiction can be challenged directly in court.

1. Heard.

2. The present writ application has been filed by the sole petitioner who was at the material time the Block Development Officer, Nawanagar, district Buxar and has since superannuated, as against the Certificate proceedings being Certificate Case No. 2/2004-05 pending before the Subdivisional Officer-cum-Certificate Officer, Dumraon.

3. The challenge is to the validity of the Certificate proceedings on the ground that the dues sought to be realised are not public demand as contemplated therein. It appears that the Block Development Officer had to supervise distribution of scholarships to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes students. The relevant rule has been appended to the writ application which clearly states that the Block Development Officer as far as possible will supervise distribution of scholarship. In the said rule it is specified that the Block Welfare Officer is mandatorily required to be present there at all such distribution and has to certify that the scholarships have been duly distributed. In the preseent case it is not in dispute that the petitioner being Block Development Officer had received scholarship money. It is not in dispute that he had transferred the entire money by cheque to the account of Block Welfare Officer. It appears that the Block Welfare Officer did not distribute rather gave a wrong and misleading certificate of its distribution. It is stated that a criminal case was instituted and nothing was found against the petitioner. It was the Block Welfare Officer and others who were charge-sheeted and nothing has been found against the petitioner till now. Now by a letter as contained in Annexure-6 the present Block Development Officer wrote to the Subdivisional Officer-cum-Certificate Officer, Dumraon that the petitioner and others had defalcated about Rs. 7,84,234/- being money meant for distribution as scholarship. They had apparently defalcated the amount and as such the same should be recovered as a public demand, on basis whereof the present proceedings being Certificate Case No. 2/2004-05 was registered before the Certificate Officer, Dumraon and notices have been issued to the petitioner, which has brought the petitioner before this Court challenging the validity of the said proceedings on the ground that the demand as sought to be realised is not a public demand.

4. Reliance has been placed on judgments of this Court since reported in 2006(1) PLJR page 186 in the case of Narendra Narayan Singh vs. The State of Bihar & Others, 2002(2) PLJR 176 (D.E.) & 2006(1) PLJR 28 for the proposition that unless the money due is a public demand the proceedings cannot be instituted much less carried on.

5. On the other hand, learned counsel for the State has referred to the judgment in the case of Md. Sattar vs. State of Bihar & Others being 2006(3) PLJR 199 for the proposition that in such matters writ jurisdiction should not be allowed to be invoked.

6. Having considered the matter and with the consent of the parties I dispose of this writ application at the stage of admission itself. The question is whether the said recoverable money is a public demand or not. In other words, whether any misappropriated or defalcated automatically ipso facto becomes a public demand and can be recovered by process taken under the Public Demand Recovery Act, 1914. Learned counsel for the State has sought to rely on Entry 8A Schedule I of the Public Demand Recovery Act. He submits that in view of Sec.3 (6) public demand means any arrear or money mentioned or referred to in Schedule I, and includes any interest which may, by law, be chargeable thereon upto the date on which a certificate is signed under part II. In view thereof Entry 8A of Schedule I is relied on which is quoted:

"Any outstanding loans and advances payable to State Government or to a Department or official of the State Government by anybody whatsoever."

7. In my view, this entry is wholly inapplicable to a case of defalcation of th