Expressing shock over recurring complaints of misappropriation of huge amounts of panchayat funds by their office-bearers by misusing the autonomy granted to elected local bodies, the Madras High Court Bench here has upheld the right of the government and district administration to keep a check on spending of public money.
A Division Bench of Justices V. Ramasubramanian and N. Kirubakaran said: “This argument (on autonomy) cannot really be belittled as invalid. But, unfortunately, the manner in which the panchayats are found to be functioning raises serious questions as to whether any such autonomy exists at all and as to how such autonomy is used and misused.”
The observations were made while dismissing a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction to Director of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj .
T.T.C. Cheran, former member of Tiruchi District Panchayat, had filed the PIL petition. Rejecting his plea, the Division Bench pointed out that as per government regulations, every village panchayat must maintain three bank accounts of which the first could be operated jointly by the presidents and vice-presidents while the third required a clearance from BDOs.
The petition had been filed challenging the director’s decision to deposit the seigniorage fee into the third account and not the first.
To substantiate the claim, the petitioner had relied upon Section 188 (1) (q) of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act, 1994 which states that the government should deposit the seigniorage fee collected by it into the village panchayat funds.
“However, unfortunately, the expression ‘village panchayat fund’ need not necessarily mean bank account number one. As a matter of fact, the Act speaks only of two types of funds for a panchayat union and only one type of fund for a village panchayat,” the judges said and pointed out that Section 188 (2) empowers the government to create additional funds in village panchayats.
“The power under Section 188(2) is not merely to constitute separate funds but also prescribe the amounts which should be credited to such funds and the manner of application of those funds,” the judges said.
