The court emphasized the importance of giving the requisition to the designated authority, in this case, the Prodhan, and interpreted that the receipt of the requisition by the job assistant fulfilled this requirement.

Barin Ghosh, J.

On 12th December, 2001 I refused to grant any interim order. The reason, therefore, had been indicated in the order dated 12th December, 2001. It is the contention in the writ petition, which has been filed by the Prodhan, that the requisitionists did not serve the requisition upon the Prodhan for the purpose of convening a meeting to consider the motion seeking such removal of the petitioner from the post of Prodhan. The requisitionists, since the Prodhan did not hold the meeting in terms of the requisition proposed to hold the meeting to consider the self same motion. It appeared to me, that either the Prodhan is telling lie or the requisitionists are telling lie and, accordingly, I refused to grant any interim order but at the same time directed the matter to appear as "Listed Motion" once again.

2. Service was effected. But when the matter was listed once again none of the requisitionists appeared and accordingly, I had no other option but to hold in favour of the petitioner. Therefore, on 11th January, 2002 I passed an order.

3. In the vacating application filed subsequently, the requisitionists have disclosed the records which contains an acknowledgement of receipt of the said requisition by the job assistant of the Gram Panchayat in question. It was contended that since the requisition was submitted to the job assistant and not to the Prodhan, this was not a requisition at all.

4. The Rules are silent as to how a requisition is required to be served. The Act, however, says that the requisition must be given to the Prodhan. It does not say that the requisition, in writing, must be served upon the Prodhan. The Act only says that there must be a requisition by the specified number of Members and that such requisition must be in writing. It further says such requisition should be given to the Prodhan.

5. The reason why that should be given to the Prodhan is that until the Prodhan is removed from his post, he being the leader of the team, should be shown respect and accordingly he alone has been authorised to convene a meeting to consider even such a motion. Only in the event, despite such requisition, the Prodhan does not convene a meeting, the law permits the requisitionists to convene a meeting.

6. The job assistant is directly under the Prodhan. He is the executive head of the Gram Panchayat, and working directly under the Prodhan. In the normal course, a high authority, as the Prodhan, is not required to accept all communications by his own hand. If a requisition is handed over to the job assistant for the purpose of forwarding the same to the Prodhan, the presumption would be that the job assistant, upon receipt of the requisition, did forward the same to the Prodhan to bring to his knowledge that such a requisition has been received. The Prodhan thereupon is required to act. But a person, who is working directly under the Prodhan, would not forward the requisition to the Prodhan is incomprehensible.

7. The learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the receipt by the job assistant might have been manufactured or procured later. That may be so; but sitting in writ jurisdiction, I cannot declare the same. For that the petitioner would be required to approach such fact findings authority as the petitioners may be advised. However, until such time it is declared to be a manufactured document, I cannot shut my eyes to the same, and if I look at the same, I have no other alternative but to pronounce that the Prodhan was duly given the requisition and, accordingly, there is nothing further survives in the writ petition and the same is dismissed.

8. All interim orders, if any, stands vacated.

9. In view of disposal of the writ application, the connected application being CAN No. 956 of 2002 has become infructuous and treating the same as on days' list and the same is dismissed as such.

10. There will be no order as to costs.

Appeals dismissed.