Due process requires applicants to be notified and fairly considered for benefits in public schemes.

JUDGMENT

The petitioner is stated to be a member of the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community. He submitted Ext.P2 application before the 4^th respondent for inclusion and the benefits under the Life Mission Kerala Scheme. By the minutes at Ext.P4 of the respondent Grama Sabha, the petitioner’s claim came to be rejected, alleging that the petitioner has a habitable residence. It is seeking to challenge the decision at Ext.P4, as above, that the petitioner is before this Court.

2. Heard Sri.K. Rakesh, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri.N.B. Sunil Nath, learned Government Pleader for respondents 1, 2, 3 and 6, and Smt.K.P. Susmitha, learned counsel for respondents 4 and 5.

3. A photograph of the so-called “habitable residence”

of the petitioner is produced along with the writ petition at Ext.P5. If the state of affairs as reflected in Ext.P5 is correct, then the consideration made in Ext.P4 does not appear to be justified. The thatched building, if it can be called so, as seen from Ext.P5, cannot be stated to be a habitable building, so as to deny the benefit of the Life Mission Kerala Scheme, to the petitioner herein. This Court also notices that the decision at Ext.P4 has been taken without putting the petitioner on notice.

In such circumstances, I am of the opinion that the matter requires a revisit at the hands of the Grama Sabha. Accordingly, the decision taken in Ext.P4 minutes as far as it pertains to the petitioner herein, would stand set aside. There will be a direction to the 5^th respondent Secretary of the Panchayat, to place the petitioner’s application for fresh consideration by the Grama Sabha. An appropriate notice should also be issued to the petitioner before a decision is taken on the application. A decision, as above, is to be taken as expeditiously as possible, at any rate, within a period of 12 weeks from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this judgment.

Sd/-