The duty of the Collector to verify the genuineness of the recall proposal and the significance of the proposal's contents in the recall process.

1. Heard learned Counsel for the parties on admission.

2. Appellant-Bharti Sonkar, has filed this writ appeal against the impugned order dated 4-3-2008, passed in W.P. (C) No. 2284/2007.

3. Appellant/petitioner filed the writ petition for the following reliefs:

7.1. (1) The Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to call for the entire records reading to passing of the impugned memo, dated 26-3-2007 (Annexure P-10) before this Hon'ble Court, for its kind perusal.

7.2. The Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to issue a writ of certiorari quashing the entire proceedings culminating into memo dated 26-3-2007 (Annexure P-10) and declare the same as void and inoperative, and the further proceedings consequent to memo dated 26-3-2007 be also quashed.

7.3. Cost of the petition may also be granted to the petitioner.

7.4. Any other relief which this Hon'ble Court deems fit and proper may also kindly be granted to the petitioner, in the interest of justice.

4. The petitioner, thus, in substance was seeking quashing of the proceedings arising out of the memo dated 26-3-2007 (Annexure P-10).

5. Appellant/petitioner was elected as President of Nagar Panchayat, Gunderdehi sometime in November-December, 2004. On 15-3-2007, respondent No. 6-Pramod Kumar Jain, a Councillor of Nagar Panchayat, Gunderdehi moved an application (Annexure P-5) before the Collector, Durg for recalling the appellant/petitioner from the post of the President, Nagar Panchayat, Gunderdehi. The said motion to recall the petitioner was signed by 12 other Councillors. The Collector, Durg after satisfying himself as required under Section 47 of the C.G. Municipalities Act, 1961 (for short "the Act") prepared the memo (Annexure P-1O) forwarding the proposal to recall the appellant/petitioner to the State Government for being further forwarded to the State Election Commission.

6. The petitioner in the writ petition challenged the process of recall and the memo prepared by the Collector, Durg on the grounds that the motion of recall was not validly presented by 3/4th of total number of the elected Councillors, proposal was never placed before the Collector for verification and recording his satisfaction, as required under Section 47 (2) of the Act; statements were recorded by the Deputy Collector without any authority and that too before the time fixed, i.e., at 11.00 A.M. on 22-3-2007; whole exercise of verification was done at the behest of respondent No. 18-Smt. Ramshila Sahu, M.L.A. of Gunderdehi Constituency; objection of the petitioner with regard to the genuineness & correctness of the proposal to recall has not been considered; the whole exercise was held without any notice to the petitioner and she was not given opportunity to be present during the course of verification; and the Collector was duty bound to verify the genuineness of the proposal and he could not have entrusted the job of verification to the Deputy Collector, as Section 47 (2) of the Act does not empower the Collector to delegate his powers to the Deputy Collector.

7. Learned Single Judge on a thorough consideration of the submissions of learned Counsel for the parties and following the Full Bench judgment of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh in the case of State of M.P. v. Mahendra Kumar Saraf reported in 2005(3) JLJ 251 : 2005(4) M.P.H.T. 185, did not find any substance in the above mentioned submissions advanced on behalf of the appellant/petitioner. Learned Single Judge, therefore, passed the impugned order dated 4-3-2008 whereby the appellants writ petition was dismissed.

8. Shri Sanjay K. Agrawal, learned Counsel for the appellant confined his submissions to the following two grounds only- (i) that the satisfaction of the Collector recorded in the memo dated 26-3-2007 (Annexure P-10 in the writ petition) was about "Motion of No-Confidence" and not about "Motion to Recall"; (ii) and that the Collector himself did not verify and satisfy as contemplated under Section 47 (2) of the Act, as in the present cas