Point of Law: In exercise of discretionary power of judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution, the High Court might interfere with administrative matters only if the decision is violative of fundamental or basic principles of justice and fair play or suffers from any patent of flagrant error.

ORDER :

1. By way of this petition, under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs :-

“9(a) To admit and allow the petition;

(b) To issue a writ of mandamus or a writ in the nature of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction quashing and setting aside the order dated 01.04.2021 by respondent no. 1 authority and order dated 28.10.2020 passed by respondent no. 2 authority;

(c) To call for the copy of the records and proceedings of appeal no. 81 of 2020 before the respondent no. 1 authority;

(d) To stay the operation, implementation and execution of the order dated 01.04.2021 passed by respondent no. 1 authority pending hearing and final disposal of the present petition;

(e) To grant ex-parte ad-interim relief in terms of para (d) hereinabove;

(f) To grant such other and further reliefs as the circumstance requires.”

2. The background of the present case is that the petitioner was elected as a Sarpanch of Koth Gram Panchayat, Taluka : Dholka, District : Ahmedabad in January, 2017 and since then was working as a Sarpanch of the said Gram Panchayat in exercise of powers under Sections 57 of the Gujarat Panchayats Act. It is the case of the petitioner that respondent no.2 issued show cause notice on 20.02.2020 to the petitioner by imputing certain charges, which are enumerated in the show cause notice. By levelling as many as 4 charges, the petitioner was called upon to remain present for hearing on 12.03.2020 for explaining as to why the petitioner should not be removed under Section 57(1) of the Gujarat Panchayats Act. The said show cause notice came to be replied by the petitioner and after considering the explanation, the authority i.e. respondent no. 2 was pleased to pass an order of removal. By raising plea of lack of providing opportunity to the petitioner, against the said order, statutory appeal came to be filed before respondent no. 1 authority, who according to the petitioner vide order dated 01.04.2021 was pleased to confirm the order passed by respondent no. 2 without proper application of mind and without considering the legal defences raised in the appeal and in this background of fact, these two orders concurrently passed by the respondent authorities are made the subject matter of present petition.

3. Based upon such representation of the petitioner, the Court was pleased to issue notice upon the respondents and later on vide order dated 08.06.2021, and after completion of pleadings in the present proceedings, with the aforesaid background, the present petition has come up for consideration before this Court.

4. Learned advocate Mr. Chitrajeet Upadhyay for Mr. Kirtan Mistry, learned advocate appearing for the petitioner has vehemently contended that right from initiation of steps against the petitioner, the authority has acted contrary to the statutory provisions. According to learned advocate Mr. Upadhyay, the allegations which are levelled in the notice are not forming the circumstance by virtue of which the powers can be exercised under Section 57(1) of the Gujarat Panchayats Act. Mere financial irregularity and dereliction of duty cannot be a subject matter of step under Section 57 of the Gujarat Panchayats Act and as such, the orders passed by the authorities below without appreciating this, since an initiation of steps itself is quite contrary to the statutory provisions. It has been submitted that though the charges which have been levelled in the notice have been well explained by the petitioner, the same having been examined and considered in their proper perspective and such explanation though part of the record, the findings are quite contrary. As a result of this, the orders impugned are perverse to the record. It has further been contended that it is settled position of law that whenever any elected representative is to be removed, then the said action is a serious act which cannot be initiated in such a lighter form, which is reflect