Collector has no right to suspend civic chiefs’ cheque-signing powers, rules Madras HC

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court held that the district collector has no authority to suspend or withdraw the cheque-signing authority of a panchayat's elected president or vice-president with mere allegations of fund misappropriation or mismanagement.

The district collector or panchayat inspector can only execute their emergency power with limited situation stipulated under Section 203 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats to suspend or withdraw the cheque signing authority, wrote a division bench of Justice SS Sundar and Justice K Rajasekar while allowing a batch of petitions moved by presidents of various panchayats in Coimbatore seeking to quash the suspension of cheque signing power.

Suppose the president or vice president refuses to sign a cheque and thereby tries to delay the execution of any work, the executive authority can invoke the emergency power, wrote the bench.

Since no prior notice was issued to the petitioners, the orders that suspended the presidents' power violated the principles of natural justice, wrote the bench and quashed the orders issued by the collector.

The petitioners, P Rangaraj, D Palaniammal and T Vimala, are elected presidents of Somayampalayam, Malumichampatti and Chikkadasampalayam panchayats, respectively, at Coimbatore.

The petitioners' case is that they are the elected representatives of the panchayat as independent candidates and candidates from the opposition party (AIADMK), and the ruling party members of the panchayats pressurized the Coimbatore collector to issue a show-cause notice against them with the allegations of lack of transparency and misappropriation of funds.

Despite having submitted the explanations to the notice, the collector, under the ruling party's pressure, invoked the emergency power to withdraw their cheque signing authority with the allegation of misappropriation of funds and management, the petitioners added.

After the submissions, the bench referred to several judgments explaining the powers conferred to the district collectors under the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act and concluded that the collector could execute his emergency power only under the situation stipulated in Section 203 of the Act.

The allegations against the petitioner do not warrant invocation of emergency power of the Collector under Section 203 of the Act to suspend even temporarily the cheque signing authority of the president, the bench held.

However, the bench granted liberty to the respondent to initiate fresh proceedings after issuing a show cause notice to the petitioners in compliance with the principles of natural justice.