The Manipur High Court ruled that panchayat members cannot remain in office after five years, striking down a 1996 amendment to the Panchayat Raj Act as unconstitutional. The Court restored the original law, ordering fresh elections within six months.
The Manipur High Court has struck down a controversial change made almost thirty years ago to the state’s Panchayat Raj Act. The amendment, which was passed in 1996, had allowed panchayat members to stay in office even after their five-year term was over.
The Court has now ruled that this amendment was unconstitutional and against the true spirit of democratic governance.
The case titled Mayanglambam Joykumar Singh & Anr v The State of Manipur & Ors was heard by a Division Bench of Chief Justice Kempaiah Somashekar and Justice A Guneshwar Sharma.
The judges examined the 1996 amendment to Section 22(3) of the Manipur Panchayat Raj Act, 1994, and declared it invalid because it violated Article 243E of the Constitution of India. The Court also found the amendment to be unreasonable and illogical.
The High Court restored the law to its original form, making it clear that the term of panchayat members will automatically end after five years.
The judges observed,
“In the circumstances, we are of the considered opinion that the amendment of Manipur Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 1996 to the Manipur Panchayati Raj Act, 1994 with respect to replacing the word ‘cease’ in Section 22(3) of the original Act by word ‘continue’ is ultra vires the provision of Article 243E and in violation of the decision of Hon’ble Supreme Court and High Courts.”
To fix this, the Court used the legal principle of “reading down” to correct the provision by putting back the word “cease” in Section 22(3).
The Bench said,
“In order to save the Amendment Act of 1996, this Court resort to the doctrine of ‘reading down’ by restoring the original word ‘cease’ in Section 22(3) of the Act of 1994, thereby preventing the situation where the elected members of the Panchayat can continue till next election is notified.”
This judgment came while hearing several petitions that had challenged the 1996 amendment.
Originally, Section 22 of the 1994 Act gave power to the Deputy Commissioner to appoint either an administrative committee or an administrator for a period not longer than six months if elections could not be held on time.
Under Section 22(3), before the amendment, all elected members of the gram panchayat would “cease” to hold office once such an administrative committee or administrator was appointed.
But in 1996, the Manipur Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Act replaced the word “cease” with “continue” and also removed the word “administrator.”
This meant that even when an administrative committee was in place, the old panchayat members could continue in office at the same time.
The High Court found this change completely unworkable. It said that it created an absurd and confusing situation where two parallel bodies—the administrative committee and the expired panchayat members—were both claiming authority.
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The judges observed, “The amendment in Section 22(3) of replacing the word ‘cease’ by ‘continue’ does not serve any fruitful purpose except for creating a confusion, absurdity and anomaly of having dual bodies for the same office.”
In its ruling, the Court upheld the removal of the word “administrator” but restored the original word “cease” in Section 22(3).
On the same day, the same Division Bench also passed another judgment overturning an earlier single-judge order. That order had allowed members of panchayats and zilla parishads, whose term had already ended, to remain in office until fresh elections were conducted.
The Division Bench made it clear once again that the maximum term of a gram panchayat is five years and cannot be extended.
It also clarified that under Section 22 of the Act, members of an administrative committee need not only come from sitting panchayat members—rather, any voter of a gram panchayat is eligible to be appointed.
The Court explained,
“Section 109 of the Manipur Panchayati Raj Act, 1994 is a general clause empowering the authority to remove difficulties and in doing so, the Authority has no power to appoint Administrative Committee beyond the period of 6 months and/or till the election are notified.”
The judges further struck down all appointments made by the State government where administrative committees or zilla parishad administrators were given powers for more than six months.
Finally, the Court directed the State government to hold elections for these panchayats within the next six months.
Case Title:
Mayanglambam Joykumar Singh & Anr v The State of Manipur & Ors]
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