( 1 ) THIS is an application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India.

( 2 ) THE applicants, who have been convicted by a Panchayati Adalat under Sections 426, 447 and 277, Penal Code, pray that this Court may be pleased to quash the proceedings of the Panchayati adalat and the sentence passed by it on them.

( 3 ) THE main grievance of the applicants is that the trial took place before a bench of which only the President Shri Sarju Prasad Misra was a member of the Gaon Sabha in the jurisdiction of which both the complainant and the accused resided. His contention is that, according to Section 49 (2), U. P. Panchayati Raj Act, two of the members should have been from the area where the complainant and the accused resided. The allegation that the bench was improperly constituted is denied by the complainants on whose behalf a counter-affidavit has been filed in this case. The objection to the illegal constitution of the bench was neither taken at any stage before the panchayati Adalat nor before the Sub-Divisional Magistrate. In these circumstances, we are bound to place reliance upon what the complainants have stated, namely, that the bench was properly constituted. Had there been any defect in the constitution of the bench, it is only natural to think that the applicants would have raised an objection, at some stage or the other before the panchayati Adalat or the Sub-Divisional Magistrate. I must not be understood to agree with the proposition that it is open to the applicants to waive any irregularity or illegality in the constitution of the bench. It is unnecessary for me to decide this point as on the facts established in this case it does not arise.

( 4 ) A second ground which has, however, not been pressed before us that the applicants were not afforded any opportunity to produce certain pieces of evidence. The complainant Virpratap states that, to the best of his knowledge, they never expressed any desire of filing the papers referred to in para. 10 of the affidavit. There is nothing to support the contention of the applicants that they wanted to produce evidence which was unjustly refused by the Panchayati Adalat.

( 5 ) FOR these reasons we hold that there is no force in this application. It is accordingly dismissed. Agarwala, J.

( 6 ) I wish to add a few remarks about the objection that the bench was not properly constituted because the bench did not include one panch from the area in which the complainant resided. It does not appear that any objection to this effect was taken before the bench of the Panchayati adalat which tried the case. If the applicants had any grievance on this score, they could have moved the Sub-Divisional Magistrate under Section 85, U. P. Panchayat Raj Act for cancellation of the jurisdiction of the Panchayati Adalat even daring the pendency of the case. They did not do so. After the decision of the case also they do not appear to have taken any objection to this effect before the Sub-Divisional Magistrate. In the circumstances it may be assumed that either the allegation of the applicants that the bench did not include one panch from the area in which the complainant resided is untrue (as my learned brother has done in his judgment) or that the applicants waived the irregularity or illegality in the constitution of the bench. In the affidavit of the opposite party, the applicants allegation has not been specifically denied.

( 7 ) SECTION 49 no doubt is worded in mandatory language. It provides that every bench of the panchayati Adalat shall include one panch who resides in the area of the Gaon Sabha in which the defendant or the accused resides and one panch from the area of the Gaon Sabha in which the plaintiff or the complainant resides. Admittedly, out of the panches who tried the case one panch was a resident of the place where both the applicants and the complainant resided. Therefore so far as the provision relating to one panch residing in the area in which th