Discrimination on the ground of caste in the delimitation of wards in Panchayats is violative of Article 15 of the Constitution.

WANCHOO,C. J.

( 1 ) THIS is an application by Bhopalsingh under Article 226 of the Constitution and arises in the following circumstances.

( 2 ) THE applicant is resident of village Gothra in Tehsil Degana and is eligible to contest the election for the office of Panch and Sarpanch of Degana Tehsil panchavat. The Sarpanch and Panchas of the Tehsil Panchayats are elected under section 58 (2) of the Rajasthan Panchayat Act, 1953 (Act No. XXI of 1953), hereinafter called the Act. by an electoral col-lege consisting of Sarpanchas and panchas of all the Panchayats in the Tehsil. Twenty-nine Panchayats were notified for this purpose as falling within Degana tehsil whose Panchas and Sarpanchas were entitled to form an electoral college for electing the Tehsil Panchayat of Degana. The applicant wanted to stand for the Tehsil Panchayat Deeana and, therefore, looked into the list of voters who would form electoral college for the Tehsil Panchayat. He says that he then found certain defects and his contention is that in view of those defects, this Court should declare Section 5 of the Act invalid and stay election proceedings relating to degana Tehsil Panchayat till the defects are remedied and the law amended.

( 3 ) THE first defect, according to the applicant, is that there was no notification by the Government as required by Section 58 (1) of the Act establishing the Tehsil panchayat. The second defect which he noticed was that Section 5 of the Act, which gave power to the Chief Panchayat Officer to divide each Panchayat circle into Wards and fix the cumber of Panchas to be elected from each ward, conferred such wide and arbitrary powers on the Panchayat Officer that he was able to abuse that power in various ways in delimiting wards in the Panchayat circles of Degana tehsil. The applicant contends that this arbitrari-ness on the part of the Chief Panchayat officer in delimiting the Panchayats was so great that it amounted to denying equal protection of the law guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution and also amounted to discrimination forbidden under Article 15. He, therefore, submits that Section 5 of the Act which can permit such abuses should be struck down as violating Arts. 14 and 15 of the Constitution.

( 4 ) THE abuses which the applicant has pointed out may now be briefly summarised as below:

1. The Minister-in-charge of the Department at the time the wards were delimited was Shri Kurnbharam Arya, a Jat, and in consequence, the power of delimiting wards, which vested in the Chief Panchavat Officer, was abused, presumably under the influence of the Minister in such a way that wherever possible, the Jat -community was given over-representation in the Panchayats as against non-Jats. The applicant has given examples of this abuse with which we shall deal at the proper place.

2. Further, in order to carry out the same idea of giving over-representation to the Jats, Panchayat circles were so formed as to give domination to the Jat community so much so that with this idea in view, villages which were separated by a distance of many miles were added on to certain Panchayats and the principle of a compact contiguous area for a Panchayat was given the go-by. The applicant has given examples of this also with which we shall deal later.

3. Still with the same idea in mind, namely giving over-representation to the Jats, wards were framed on the basis of caste and members of whole castes were removed from one ward to another in order to give advantage to Jats. Examples of these kinds of Panchayats have also been given and we shall deal with them later.

4. Again, in order to give over-representation to Jats, wards in panchayat circles were so framed that for the same number of population where the area was predominantly Jat, more members were allotted than in the area where the population was non-fat. Examples of this have also been given and we shall consider them at the proper stage.

( 5 ) CONSEQUENTLY, it is urged tha