Legal wait leaves panchayat pradhan with 2 months in office

The defeat-to-victory story of Ranju Negta is a perfect example of ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’. As it took almost five years to decide her election petition, the newly sworn-in pradhan of gram panchayat Sari (Jubbal, district Shimla) will have a term of just over two months instead of five years. Declared a loser in the panchayat elections held in January, 2021, she was declared the winner by one vote by a Double Bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, and was administered oath as pradhan on November 7.

“I had mixed feelings when I took the oath. I was happy that my stand has been vindicated and the truth has come out after such a long struggle. At the same time I knew it’s a mere consolation as just two months of my term remains,” said Ranju Negta.

Having lost her entire term in seeking justice, Negta wants that election petitions should be decided in fixed timeframe so that such an incident does not recur. “In this long fight, we lost time, resources and peace of mind, but we did not give up because I knew victory had been snatched from me. But everyone can’t fight till the High Court,” she said, adding that these petitions should be disposed of at the level of SDM or the Deputy Commissioner in a reasonable time period.

As per the Panchayati Raj Act, every election petition shall be decided by the authorised officer within a period of six months from the date of its presentation. However, timelines are often not adhered to due to various factors, including long dates of hearing, examining of witnesses, evidence, and sometime due outside pulls and pressures. And if the candidate goes in appeal, there’s no time period to decide the matter.

“Election petitions could be decided promptly if the responsibility to monitor and dispose of the petitions is given to the election commission. Once the elections are over, election commission doesn’t have much work and can easily dispose of the petitions that remain undecided with SDMs and DCs for months or even years,” said an official well versed with the election process. He further said the proposal for creating a mechanism to dispose of the election petitions within the election commission was discussed at the government of India level more than a decade back but nothing came off it. “With a candidate losing her entire term awaiting the decision on her petition, it is high time the proposal is revisited and pushed ahead,” the official said.