ORDER
1. The petitioner is the President of Balapanur Distributory Committee-I. The elections to the Managing Committee were conducted by the District Collector as provided for under Sections 4 and 8 of the A.P. Fanners Management of Irrigation Systems Act, 1997 (for short ‘the Act’). The petitioner was served with a notice on 24-12-1998 by the second respondent requesting him to attend the meeting proposed to be held on 2-1-1999 at the office of the D.L. Sub-division, Ankalamma Gudur to replace the petitioner as President of Balapanur Distributory Committee-I. It is the said notice that is impugned in this writ petition on various grounds.
2. Section 5 of the Act authorises the Government to delineate every command area of the irrigation system comprising of one or more Water Users’ Associations and declare the same to be a distributory area for the purpose of this Act, There shall be a distributory committee for every distributory area and all the Presidents of the Water User Associations in that distributory area shall constitute general body of the Committee. Section 6 of the Act provides for the election of the President and constitution of the Managing Committee for every distributory committee. Section 10 of the Act prescribes procedure for recall of Chairman or President or Member of a Managing Committee, as the case may be, of the Fanners’ Organisation and the Farmers’ Organisation shall mean and include the Water Users’ Association at the primary level, distributory committee at the secondary level and project committee at the project level.
3. In the instant writ petition, we are concerned with the Fanners’ Organisation at
the secondary level. According to the procedure prescribed under Section 10 of the Act a motion for recalling a Chairman or President or a Member of a Managing Committee of Farmers’ Organisation is required to be made by giving a written notice as prescribed and signed by not less than one-third of the total number of members of the organisation. If the motion is carried with the support of the majority of the members present for voting at the meeting of the general body specially convened for the purpose, the District Collector or the Government as the case may be shall by order remove the concerned from office. However, no notice of motion under Section 10 can be made within one year of the date of assumption of the office by the person against whom the motion is sought to be moved.
4. The Government of Andhra Pradesh in purported exercise of the power conferred by Section 43 read with Sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 28, 29 and 31 of the Act made rules known as the Andhra Pradesh Farmers’ Management of Irrigation Systems Rules, 1997 (for short ‘the Rules’). Rule 8 of the Rules says that the competent authority to receive the recall notice in respect of a Chairman or the President or a Member of the Managing Committee of a Farmers’ Organisation shall be the ‘District Collector’ or an officer nominated by him, and provides for procedure, the mode and method of signing the recall notice and calling for the meeting of the voters or members of the general body and issuance of proceedings to recall the concerned Chairman, President or Member of the respective Farmers’ Organisation.
5. A reading of Section 10 of the Act and Rule 8 of the Rules would make it abundantly clear that the competent authority to receive the recall notice is the ‘District Collector’ or the officer nominated by him. It is also required to notice at this stage that Section 21 of the Act authorises the
Government to appoint an officer of the Irrigation and Command Area Development Department or any other Department or Corporation, including Irrigation Development Corporation, to be the ‘competent authority’ to every Fanners’ Organisations for the purposes of this Act and such competent authority appointed shall be responsible to the respective Farmers’ Organisation for implementation and execution of all decisions taken by the Fanners’ Organisations and the expression ‘competent authority’ according to Section 2(d) of the Act means the authority appointed under Section 21 ofthe Act. The competent aulhority appointed under Section 21 of the Act is responsible for implementation and execution of all the decisions taken by the Farmers’ Organisation.
6. It is so clear that this competent authority so appointed under Section 21 of the Act is not the competent to receive the motion for recall of Chairman or Member of the Managing Committee of a Fanners’ Organisation under Section 10 of the Act. The ‘competent authority’ for such purpose to receive the motion of recall is the ‘District Collector’ or an officer nominated by him, as provided under Rule 8 of the Rules.
7. Section 10 of the Act provides for the motion to recall by giving a written notice as may be prescribed and Rule 8 of the rules prescribes the complete procedure, including the competent authority to receive such notice, who is the District Collector or an officer nominated by him. Therefore, the competent authority for the purpose of Section 21 is not the same as for the purpose to receive a motion for recalling of Chairman or President as the case may be. There are two competent authorities under the Act -one for the purpose of Section 21 for implementing and execution of the decisions taken by the Farmers’ Organisation and the other for the limited purpose of receiving recall notice and conducting the meeting and
for issuance of proceedings to recall, depending upon the result of the general body convened for this purpose.
8. In the instant case, the notice was issued by the Deputy Executive Engineer, MRC Sub-division No.5, Jammalamadugu on 24-12-1998 proposing to convene the meeting to be held on 2-1-1999 for considering the motion against the petitioner. The Government through G.O. Rt. No.1326, I&CAD (CAD-IV) Department, dated 24-10-1997 in exercise of the power conferred by sub-section (I) of Section 21 of the Act appointed the Deputy Executive Engineer, MRC Canals, Mylavaram, PBC Sub-division of Pulivendula as the competent authority for the purpose of Section 21. The person who issued the impugned notice is not even nominated by the Government as the competent authority even for the purposes of Section 21 of the Act. It is this point that is highlighted by the petitioner. Even if he is appointed as competent authority for the purpose of Section 21 the same is of no consequence and he could not have issued the notice to convene the meeting for the purposes of considering the motion to recall the petitioner as President of the Distributary Committee. It is only the District Collector or a person nominated by him is competent to convene the meeting to consider the motion to recall against the petitioner. Admittedly, no such notice in Form J is received by the District Collector or an officer nominated by him.
9. The whole proceedings, since inception, suffers from incurable infirmities. The impugned notice dated 24-12-1998 is ultra vires and cannot be given effect to. No motion can be allowed to go on pursuant to the impugned notice dated 24-12-1998. In view of this finding, the other questions need not be gone into.
10. For all the aforesaid reasons, the impugned notice – Lr.No.17/24-12-1998 issued by the second respondent herein is
declared as illegal and without jurisdiction. However, this order shall not preclude the District Collector or an officer nominated by him to receive the notice of motion to recall the President, if the same is submitted in accordance with law and proceed further in terms of Rule 8 of the Rules.
11. The writ petition is accordingly allowed to the extent indicated above. No order as to costs.