HC: Entire fund at gram panchayat’s disposal

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 26

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that the Punjab Government will deposit grants-in-aid directly in the gram panchayat fund.

The panchayats will be at liberty to spend the money. No agency or authority of the state government, including the block development and panchayat officer, can spend any amount from this fund without the panchayat’s nod, the court said recently. The Chief Secretary has been told to issue instructions to all state departments.

The directions by Justice Rameshwar Singh Malik came on a bunch of 17 petitions filed by Khippannwali gram panchayat and others against the bypassing of gram panchayats in the “most arbitrary manner”.

They were aggrieved by the “alleged inaction and serious omission on the part of the respondent authorities”, primarily on the grounds that the grants-in-aid were not being deposited in the panchayat fund. Instead, the same were being released in favour of the executing agencies for carrying out development works in the villages.

Justice Malik said: “The respondent authorities shall deposit all grants-in-aid, irrespective of the fact from which source they are coming, directly in the gram panchayat fund… there would be no exception.”

“Thereafter, it will be left to the panchayat to spend any amount out of the fund for carrying out any development work, irrespective of the executing agency, whether it is the engineering wing of the Rural Development and Panchayats Department or a private agency,” the court said.

Justice Malik ruled that the authorities would not have jurisdiction to issue directions to the gram panchayats for using this fund or releasing money to a particular agency.

The panchayat will be at liberty to get executed any development work from any government agency, including the engineering wing, the Public Works Department (Building and Road), the Mandi Board or any other public sector undertaking.

The directions will be applicable only to future works, not the ongoing ones.