Important points:
Petitioner is not eligible for the benefit under the Scheme as she is not a small or marginal farmer as defined under the Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008, who is indebted-The benefit of the Debt Waivers` scheme is intended only to indebted farmers and therefore the extent of land of a farmer alone cannot be criteria for issuing a job card.

Ext.P3 award passed by the 1st respondent is under challenge in this writ petition.

2. The petitioner was the 8th respondent in a suomotu proceedings initiated by the 1st respondent Ombudsman MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme). The Ombudsman received a complaint over telephone in respect of the work carried out by the workers under the Scheme in Amballur Grama Panchayat. On receipt of the complaint he visited the Grama Panchayat and inspected the ongoing worksite belonging to the petitioner on 27.9.2012 along with the Program Officer and Accredited Overseer. It was seen that the property in which work was carried out belonged to the petitioner, who is a member of an affluent family; her husband retired from Rubber Board and she has got two sons, of which one is working in USA as Engineer and the other one is a Doctor in Lakeshore Hospital, Ernakulam. The 1st respondent issued notice to (1) Programme Officer of the Grama Panchayat, (2) Block Program Officer of Mulanthuruthy Block, (3) District Program Co-ordinator, Ernakulam, (4) Member of the Ward XV, Amballur Grama Panchayat, (5) President of the Amballur Grama Panchayat, (6) President of the Ernakulam District Panchayat (7) Husband of the petitioner. Petitioner was impleaded later as 8th respondent. Initially respondents 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 mentioned in the award had entered appearance. The Program Officer of the Panchayat filed a statement before the Ombudsman stating that the 8th respondent had submitted an application before the Panchayat based on which a job card was issued to her and she had requested to do work in her property utilising MGNREGS workers. The Panchayat had thereupon provided 15 workers with a musterroll on 18.09.2012.

3. The award was passed initially on 18.01.2013 directing the petitioner to remit the sum of Rs.42,369/-. Thereupon petitioner submitted Ext.P2 representation requesting for granting four months time to remit the same. Thereafter the Ombudsman passed Ext.P3 revised award.

4. The Ombudsman pointed out that the name of the 8th respondent was not included in the musterroll. The Ombudsman considered the point whether the 8th respondent who belongs to an affluent family could have been allotted workers under the Scheme; whether the Program Officer could have allotted workers for carrying out the work in her property; whether all the farmers holding less than 5 acres of land and willing to do unskilled manual work are eligible to get job card and to utilize the workers to carry out the work in their property. The Ombudsman found that affluent persons and Priests will not come under the purview of marginal farmer or small farmer and therefore workers under the scheme cannot be utilized for carrying out the work, referring to the definition of small or marginal farmers as defined in the Agriculture Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008. Stating that the Debt Waiver Scheme was introduced to release farmers from debt trap, it was found that benefit under the MGNREG Scheme could be given only to indebted farmers holding less than 5 acres of land and not to those farmers who are financially sound to engage unskilled workers paying more than Rs.300/- per day as wages. It was held that benefit of the Scheme is not intended to be given to all families holding less than 5 acres of land in rural area. Referring to clause I of schedule II of the MGNREG Act, it was found that issuance of job card to the petitioner was not in tune with the purpose of the Act as application for registration and job card can be filed only by an indebted farmer. Since it was found that the petitioner had got the work in her property carried out utilising the MGNREGS workers it was decided to recover the cost incurred for the same, from the petitioner. A sum of Rs.13,132/- was found to be the cost spent for carrying out the work in the property in the year of inspection and a sum of Rs.29,237/- in the preceding financial year 2011-12; altoge