ORDER :

1. The challenge in this writ petition is to the legality and validity of notification dated 01.06.2021 passed by the State Government in exercise of powers under Section 3 sub-section (1) Clause (a) read with sub-section (8) Clause (c) of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 2009, whereby, the State Government has made provision dealing with transitory period between declaration of village area as municipality area and the elections to be held thereafter.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner would argue that the power conferred on the State under Section 3 sub-section (9) is limited to facilitate the inclusion of any area of a village in a municipality which by its very nature, does not allow the State to make any provision with regard to the Office of Chairman and Vice-Chairman of newly created/established municipality. Submission is that the legislature in its wisdom provided in Clause (c) sub-section (8) of Section 3 that until elections are held or the terms of the municipality as provided under the Act expires, whichever is earlier, the Sarpanch, Upsarpanch or Panchas representing the area of the village so included, or declared as a municipality shall be deemed to be the additional members of the municipality, in which, such area of the village is included or the Chairperson, Vice-chairperson and the members respectively of the municipality declared for such area, as the case may be. As the legislature did not specifically provide for any eventuality where more than one village area are clubbed together and declared as municipality, it is not within the authority of the State to lay down an additional provision providing for the manner in which the Chairperson and Vice-chairperson of the newly created municipality would be appointed or deemed to be appointed. He would submit that in the absence of any such provision, the provision contained in the Municipality Act providing for election of Chairperson and Vice-chairperson from amongst the ward members of the newly created municipality would become applicable and therefore, the State was left with no option but to leave the matter for appointment of Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson to be appointed under the scheme of the Municipality Act.

3. It is further submitted that in any case, the impugned notification suffers from manifest arbitrariness because the criteria for laying down as to who would be deemed to be the Chairman or the Vice-chairman is not based on any rationale. The criteria being that the Sarpanch of the Panchayat having larger number of electorate shall be deemed to be Chairman and that of a lesser number of electorate shall be deemed to be Vice-chairman could not be made a basis because this criteria is not in harmony with the scheme of the Act as the Chairperson, Vice-chairpersons have to be appointed by way of election from amongst the ward members of the municipality and therefore, by implication, they represent the entire municipality area and not confined to any particular area which was earlier a village area.

4. The notification dated 01.06.2021 reads as under:

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Øekad iŒ10 ¼uŒikŒ½ ¼xBu½@Mh,ych@20@2025
t;iqj] fnukad 1-6-2021
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vr% jktLFkku uxjikfydk vf/kfu;e] 2009 dh /kkjk 3 dh mi/kkjk ¼9½ esa ÁnRr 'kfDr;ksa dk Á;ksx djrs gq, jkT; ljdkj uxjikfydk {ks= ?kksf"kr fd;s x;s {ks= esa ,d ls vf/kd xzke iapk;r dks 'kkfey fd;s tkus dh fLFkfr esa uoxfBr uxjikfydk esa 'kkfey xzke iapk;