Panchayats Act amendment clips civic chiefs’ powers

CHENNAI: The state government’s move of amending Sections 104 and 106 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act, 1994, has attracted objections from the elected village panchayats, rural development activists and advocates. They say that it would seize the powers of the village panchayat president and the panchayats.

Speaking about this issue, T Saravanan, president of Thannatchi Amaippu, said that as per the new amendment made by the state government in May, the power to appoint the village panchayat secretary has been shifted from the panchayat presidents to the District Collectors.

“Section 104 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act is about the appointment of any servants in the panchayats that includes the secretary. As per this section, the secretary should be appointed by the inspector of panchayats/Collectors with the consultation of the executive authority of the panchayat, who is the panchayat president. According to Section 106, the punishments and transfer orders against the panchayat secretary should also be made with the nod of the president. However, the amendments had wiped out all these powers,” said Saravanan.

He further added that when they approached the government to roll back the amendment, the authorities informed them that the move was to eradicate corruption in the panchayats.

“Even, when the panchayats were administered by the secretaries, several irregularities and misappropriations were noticed in the PM housing scheme, LED light installation. When there were no elected representatives in the village panchayats, panchayat secretaries had controlled the panchayat offices despite the Block Development Officer being the special officer. Therefore, the contention of the officers could not be accepted and the move will definitely strike the powers of presidents,” he added. Advocate Siva Kumar of Madras High Court said that a village panchayat president from Virudhunagar had approached Madras High Court Madurai bench in May and got an interim stay against this amendment.

“Justice Abdul Quoddhose granted the interim stay to a GO passed in February that shifted the powers of the president in appointing the panchayat secretary. The judge granted the stay considering Section 84 (b) of the TN Panchayats Act. As per Section 84 (b), the executive authority/president has to control all the officers and servants of the Village Panchayat,” the advocate told the DT Next.

The activist and the advocate jointly said that shifting the powers of the president to the Collector would cause injustice to the panchayat system.

“Panchayats are covered under Article 243 (g) of the Constitution. When the powers of panchayats are usurped, the same will affect the rural population. If Collectors appoint and transfer panchayat secretaries, the secretaries will directly report to BDOs, and AD Panchayats. Therefore, the people’s representatives could not discharge their duties as there will be a parallel power center functioning in each village that is detrimental to rural development,” they said.

It may be noted that Thannatchi Amaippu had also organised a protest against this amendment in Chennai on Saturday.