Taking serious cognisance of the misuse of women Panchayat representatives’ office by the husbands and sons of the Women Pradhans, the State administration has decided to initiate action against those found usurping the rights of women Panchayat representatives. The State is also concerned about such misuse of power gaining social acceptance.
Addressing the media, the Panchayati Raj secretary Vinod Fonia said that in her capacity as the Gram Panchayat information officer, a Gram Pradhan from Haridwar district was slated to appear in the State Information Commission but instead of her, the husband of the Pradhan appeared at the SIC. Taking serious cognisance of this, the SIC wrote to the State administration. “The State has taken serious cognisance of such unhealthy and unconstitutional usurping of the rights of women Panchayat representatives by their husbands and sons. The chief secretary N Ravishankar has written to all concerned in the establishment to not allow such anomalies and initiate necessary action in cases of such misuse of official power. The action to be taken in such cases will be decided on a case to case basis but apart from departmental action, if a husband or son, of a woman Panchayat representative, are found to be getting official work done in her name then criminal proceedings could be initiated against them for impersonation and fraud,” he said.
A considerable number of women were elected to various posts in the recent three-tier Panchayat polls. Of the 52,913 seats to which elections were held, women were elected to 29,660 seats.