ORDER :

N. Anand Venkatesh, J.

1. These batch of Writ Petitions have been filed by the Presidents of various Panchayats challenging the action of the Respondents in utilizing the funds meant for the Panchayats from and out of the 14th Financial Commission (hereinafter referred to as "FFC") and utilizing the same for carrying out the works and particularly, the work of upgradation of roads in the respective villages falling within the panchayats, without the concurrence of the elected body in the respective panchayats. Apart from the said challenge, the Petitioners have also questioned the calling of tender by the Respondents for carrying on with the upgradation of road work in the respective panchayats.

2. The common grievance of the Petitioners is that the local body elections which were due in October 2016, was not conducted till the year 2019. During the interregnum period, in order to administer the local bodies such as the Corporations, Municipalities, Town Panchayats, District Panchayats, Panchayat Unions and Village Panchayats, Special Officers were appointed in all the local bodies to perform the functions of the respective local bodies. Ultimately, the elections were held in December 2019 and all the office bearers took charge during the first week of January 2020. Thereby, the tenure of the Special Officer came to an end and the elected body assumed charge. In spite of the same, the Respondents were utilising the funds from and out of the 14th FFC and started calling for tenders to appoint contractors to carry on with the work of upgradation of roads in various panchayats. According to the Petitioners, this was done without the concurrence of the elected body and the elected body was completely side-lined and the Executive was continuing to call for the tenders independently and was also taking hasty steps to commence the work. Aggrieved by the same, the above batch of Writ Petitions have been filed before this Court.

3. The Director of Department Rural Development and Panchayat Raj has filed a common counter affidavit in all the Writ Petitions. The relevant portions in the counter affidavit are extracted hereunder:

"8. The Government of India has earmarked a sum of Rs. 1,516.12 Crore for 2017-18, Rs. 1,753.87 crore for 2018-19 and Rs. 2,369.86 crore for 2019-20 under Fourteenth Finance Commission Basic Grant for Tamil Nadu. While the funds earmarked for the year 2017-2018 and 2018-19 were released to all the Village Panchayats. The funds earmarked for 2019-20 was released only to the Village Panchayats in 27 districts, i.e. an amount of Rs. 1,820.11 crore, where the local bodies have been constituted.

9. It is submitted that considering the importance of improving the Village Panchayat Roads as indicated earlier it was decided to utilize the funds under 14th Finance Commission for the purpose of improving the Village Panchayat roads in a project mode. Accordingly, during the financial year 2018-19, 1,504 KM length of Village Panchayat roads were taken up for improvement at a cost of Rs. 300.33 crore. In continuation of this, 1622 KM length of roads was sanctioned at a cost of Rs. 359.83 crore under 14th Finance Commission during 2019-20 using 1st instalment of funds and another 399.33 crore was proposed to be taken up by using 2nd instalment funds under the financial year 2019-20, which is being challenged now. The works taken up by using 1st instalment of funds for the year 2019-20 was tendered at the District Level only and the same procedure was adopted for the 2nd instalment also. In short, considering the quantum of funds involved the implementation process was conceived as a scheme and directions issued accordingly.

10. It is submitted that, to draw some parallels and precedence, it would be prudent to peruse the following aspects:-

The 12th Finance Commission grants and 13th Finance Commission grants provided specific grants for the Maintenance of Rural roads. Whereas, the 14th Finance Commission grants have built in