Much of the complaints that the ombudsman receives are from village panchayats. But the ombudsman turns down all these complaints without an inquiry as village panchayats and panchayat unions do not come under the ambit of the ombudsman.
As per the act that was passed in 2014, the ombudsman covers 12 municipal corporations, 124 municipalities, 528 panchayats and 29 district panchayats. But the district panchayats do not include village panchayats and panchayat unions.
Ombudsman S Ayyar told TOI that village panchayats are not included under the definition of the local bodies in the act.
“I have no choice but to turn down the petitions,” he said.
So far, 138 petitions from village panchayats have been returned. Activists called this exclusion deliberate as thousands of crores of rupees is spent on rural villages every year by the central and state governments and maximum corruption takes place there.
Advocate B Ramesh said by not including village panchayats in the local bodies definition, citizens have been denied their rights provided by the Constitution under articles 14 and 21.
“Maximum corruption takes place in village panchayats with a lot of schemes introduced by the state and central governments. Several thousand crores are spent for the schemes. But the villagers never get benefitted from these schemes and the officials misappropriate these funds. No action can be taken against these officials as most times an enquiry is also not called by the state government. The ombudsman also turns down our petition,” he said.
RTI activist S P Thiyagarajan said, “If complaints against village panchayats were included and heard in the last three years, several scams could have been stopped and misappropriation of tax payer’s money would not have taken place. Financial burden on the state would have come down as the government would have saved a lot of revenue.”
He added that he has sent a petition to the governor regarding this and will also file a public interest litigation if government does not include village panchayats under this act. “How can village panchayats not be part of local bodies. This has been done deliberately by the politicians to safeguard their interests and to ensure they can easily siphon off money without anyone’s knowledge,” he said.
Activists said that an amendment should be brought and the officials working in village panchayats should be held accountable under the act. “If this is not done then the entire purpose of setting up the ombudsman court cannot be not realized at all,” said Ramesh.