The suspension of an elected representative without a hearing is violative of the principles of natural justice and Article 14 of the Constitution.

J.R. Chopra, J.-These two writ petitions raise common questions of law and, therefore, they were heard together and are being disposed of by a common judgment.

2. Succinctly stated, the facts of these two writ petitions are as under:

(1) Facts of Jan Mohd.’s case. The case of the petitioner Jan Mohd. is that in the general elections of Municipal Board, Sardarshahar, 30 members were elected and out of them, 15 belongs to Bhartiya Janta Party and the remaining 15 belongs to Congress-I party and in the election of Chairman of Municipal Board, Sardarshahar, in the toss, the petitioner was elected as Chairman of the Board. According to him, on account of political reasons, members of the Bhartiya Janta Party, which is presently ruling in the State, always tried to remove the petitioner from the Chairmanship. He has submitted that recently on the complaints of the members of the ruling party in the State about the affairs of the Board, an enquiry was conducted by the Deputy Director, Local Self Government Department, Jaipur and in that enquiry, he has submitted that he is nowhere involved in any of the works executed, and every work was executed after the approval of the Board. It has been submitted that the integrity of the petitioner is beyond doubt. According to the petitioner, as the members of the ruling party were determined to remove the petitioner from the post of Chairman. Municipal Board, Sardarshahar for ulterior motive, they persuaded the State Govt. to suspend the petitioner from the post of Chairman because their eiforts failed to remove him. However, the petitioner was served with a notice (Annexure-1) and the statement of allegations (Annexure-2) and by order (Annexure-3), he has been suspended from the post of Chairman, Municipal Board, Sardarshahar under Section 63(4) of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 1959 (for short ‘the Act’).

3. It has been contended that the suspension of an elected member cannot be equated with the suspension of a Govt. servant inasmuch as the suspension of an elected member amounts to his temporary removal and, therefore, all sorts of precautions should be taken before suspending an elected member. The temporary removal of an elected member without aifording him an opportunity of being heard is violative of the principles of natural justice. It was submitted that the suspension order has not been served on petitioner as yet and he obtained a copy of it from the Executive Officer of the Municipal Board.

4. The contention of the petitioner is that the allegations levelled against him under Section 63 of the Act do not in any manner amount to flagrant abuse of his position and he is neither guilty of misconduct in

discharging his duties nor is he guilty of disgraceful misconduct. All these allegations are baseless. The entire works were executed by unanimous resolution of the Board and the Chairman has not power to override the Board. The payment of the amount over and above Rs. 10,000/-has been contributed by the Doners. The Municipality has not made that payment. As regards appointments of Clerks, the Executive Officer is competent to do so and the Chairman is not at all involved in that matter. For removal of encroachments, the Executive Officer of the Board is the competent authority under Section 203 of the Act. He has submitted that it is wrong to contend that on 4-10-1991, when Truck No. RRM 2227, which was going without paying octroi duty, was raided by the Nakedar, he asked the Nakedar not to take action against the owner of that truck. According to him, the truck was ordered to be released after recovering eleven-times penalty. As regards the allegations of purchasing of pipes, it has been submitted that the pipes were never purchased and no payment against purchase of pipes was made. The allegation regarding purpose of Patties of 4 lakhs is also wrong as this fund for purchasing of patties was released by the Collector, Chum and the Patties were purchased after obtaining th