LODHA, J.—By this writ application under Art.226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner, who was Sarpanch of Gram Panchayat, Bibipur Chhota, District Sikar, has Challenged the motion of no-confidence passed against him on 27-9-72. The validity of no-confidence motion is being challenged on the following grounds I—

(1) It has not been passed by 3/4th of the total number of members of the Panchayat including Sarpanch as provided by sec. 19(2) of the Rajasthan Panchayat Act, 1953 (which will hereinafter for the sake of brevity be referred to as the Act).

(2) That the notice of no-confidence motion dated 12-9-72 marked Ex. 1A is bad because,—

(a) is does not set out the proposed motion of no-confidence in extenso as required by rule 14(2) of the Rajasthan Panchayat & Nyaya Panchayat (General) Rules, 1961 (which will hereinafter be called "the Rules);

(b) the notice is not addressed to the Deputy District Development Officer as required by rule 14(1) of the Rules;

(c) the proceedings for calling a special meeeting of the Panchayat for consideration of the motion were conducted not by the Deputy District Development Officer as required by rule 15(1) of the Rules, but were conducted by the Additional District Development Officer, who had no authority to do so; and

(d) the signatures of the mover of the no-confidence motion in the notice has not been attested by an official of the State Government or of a Panchayat Samiti.

I propose to take up these points ad seriatum.

2. So far as the interpretation of sec. 19(2) of the Act is concerned learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that there are two conflicting Single Bench decisions of this Court on the point and, therefore, the matter may be referred to a larger Bench. In the alternative he has argued that the view taken by Modi, J., in Gokulchand vs. Chief Panchayat Officer, Rajasthan, Jaipur(1) is correct and according to that view the motion cannot be said to have been passed in the present case by the requisite number of members of the Panchayat. It may be pointed out that the number of Panchas determined by the State Government under sec. 4(b) of the Act of Gram Panchayat Bibipura Chhota is 10 and by including Sarpanch the total number of the members of the Panchayat, the learned counsel for the petitioner contends, would be 11. The motion of no-confidence has been passed by 7 members only who were present in the meeting and voted for the motion. Seats of two members were admittedly lying vacant on the relevant date. Therefore, there is no denying the fact that there were only 9 members functioning at the time when the motion of no confidence was passed. If the phrase "the total number of members of the Panchayat" occurring in sec. 19(2) of the Act is so interpreted as to mean the number of Panchas determined by the State Government under sec. 4, there is no doubt that the motion has not been passed by the requisite number of members. On the other hand if the phrase "the total number of members of the Panchayat" is construed to refer only to those members who were functioning at the relevant time, then, there is no gain-saying the fact that the motion has been passed by the requisite number of members.

3. In Gokulchands case (1) it was held that the total number of Panchas of a Panchayat can only be a certain number, that number being fixed for it by the Government. In other words, this is the number not exclusive but inclusive of the vacancies on a certain Panchayat at a given time.

4. The question of interpretation of the term "the total number of Panchas" again came up for consideration before Jagat Narayan, J , as he then was, in Bansidhar vs. The State of Rajasthan(2). He took a different view. According to his interpretation "total number of Panchas" would mean "the total number of the Panchas holding office at the particular time". Apparently these cases seem to take divergent views, but a closer study of the two judgments referred to above would go to show that the con

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