Team Herald
PANJIM: The District Court, Mapusa has set aside the order passed by the Block Development Officer (BDO), Mapusa disqualifying Salvador Do Mundo panch Roshni Savaikar.
The BDO, Mapusa by an order dated March 24, 2022, had disqualified Savaikar and prevented her from acting as panchayat member of Salvador Do Mundo Village Panchayat. The disqualification petition against her was filed by Narendra Chatim.
However, Savaikar challenged the BDO’s order, alleging that it violated the principles of natural justice and that the order was passed without holding any inquiry and wrongly presuming that she had participated and voted in a resolution when in fact there was no record maintained to show that she participated and voted in the resolution having peculiar interest granting NOC for obtaining water connection to a structure belonging to her father-in-law.
Respondent Chatim had sought disqualification of the applicant under Section 12 (1) (d) and 55 (4) of The Goa Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, stating that the house of the applicant and her father-in-law was one residential dwelling house, which was initially having one house number but later on another house was also allotted to it. He claimed that the structure having two house numbers was one structure and it was registered in the name of Narayan Sonu Savaikar in the records of the Village Panchayat.
After referring to several judgments produced by both the parties, the Court held that the applicant had proved that the BDO’s order disqualifying her as a panchayat member was vitiated for not observing the principles of natural justice and for non holding of inquiry as contemplated in Section 12(2) of the Goa Panchayat Raj Act. The Court allowed her civil revision application and set aside BDO’s judgment disqualifying her as panchayat member.
