The Punjab Village Panchayats and Neighbourhood Councils
Bill 2019, having been passed by the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab on April
30, 2019, and assented to by the Governor of the Punjab on May 3, 2019, is
hereby published as an Act of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab. Summary is
as under:
Punjab Village Panchayats and Neighbourhood Councils Bill 2019
THE PUNJAB VILLAGE PANCHAYATS AND
NEIGHBOURHOOD COUNCILS ACT 2019 ACT XIV OF 2019 [First published, after having
received the assent of the Governor of the Punjab, in the Gazette of the Punjab
(Extraordinary) dated May 4, 2019.] An Act to institutionalize and strengthen
civic engagement for non-political action in the Punjab through constitution of
village Panchayats and urban neighbourhood councils Whereas it is expedient to
institutionalize and strengthen civic engagement for non-political action in
the Punjab through constitution of village Panchayats and urban neighbourhood
councils, and to provide for the matters connected therewith and ancillary
thereto; Be it enacted by Provincial Assembly of the Punjab as follows:-
Chapter I – Applicability and Interpretation 1. Short title, extent and
commencement.—(1) This Act may be cited as the Punjab Village Panchayats and
Neighbourhood Councils Act, 2019. (2) It extends to the whole of the Punjab
other than the areas notified as cantonments under the Cantonments Act, 1924
(Act II of 1924), or the Cantonments Ordinance, 2002 (CXXXVII of 2002), in
relation to the matters covered there under. (3) It shall come into force at
once. 2 2. Interpretation.— In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in
the subject or context:- (a) ‘Assistant’ means an official of the Panchayat or,
as the case may be, a neighbourhood council engaged in the prescribed manner;
(b) ‘Board’ means a Local Board established under section 65 of this Act; (c)
‘candidate’ means a candidate for elections under this Act; (d) ‘cantonment’
means place or places declared and notified as cantonment under the Cantonments
Act, 1924 (II of 1924) or the Cantonments Ordinance, 2002 (CXXXVII of 2002) by
the Government of Pakistan; (e) ‘census’ means the population and housing
census taken by the Government of Pakistan under the Census Ordinance, 1959 (X
of 1959); (f) ‘chairperson’ means the chairperson of a panchayat or, as the
case may be, a neighbourhood council; (g) ‘common assembly’ means a meeting of
residents of the village or, as the case may be, of the neighbourhood; (h)
‘corrupt practice’ means involvement of a chairperson, member or assistant in
corruption and includes any of the following: (i) coercive practice by
impairing or harming, or threatening to impair or harm, directly or indirectly,
any party or the property of the party to influence the actions of a party to
achieve a wrongful gain or to cause a wrongful loss to another party; (ii) collusive
practice by arrangement between two or more parties to the procurement process
or contract execution, designed to achieve with or without the knowledge of the
procuring agency to establish prices at artificial, non-competitive levels for
any wrongful gain; (iii) offering, giving, receiving or soliciting, directly or
indirectly, of anything of value to influence the acts of another party for
wrongful gain; (iv) any act or omission, including a misrepresentation, that
knowingly or recklessly misleads, or attempts to mislead, a party to obtain a
financial or other benefit or to avoid an obligation; (v) obstructive practice
by harming or threatening to harm, directly or indirectly, persons or their
property to influence their participation in a procurement process, or affect
the execution of a contract or deliberately destroying, falsifying, altering or
concealing of evidence material to the investigation or making false statements
before investigators in order to materially impede an investigation into allegations
of a corrupt, fraudulent, coercive or collusive practice; or threatening,
harassing or intimidating any party to prevent it from disclosing its knowledge
of matters relevant to the investigation or from pursuing the investigation, or
acts intended to materially impede the exercise of inspection and audit
process. (i) ‘corruption’ by a chairperson, member, assistant or any other
person acting under this Act means: (i) accepting, obtaining or offering any
gratification or valuable thing, directly or indirectly, other than the legal
remuneration, as a reward for doing or for bearing to do any official act; or
(ii) dishonestly or fraudulently misappropriating, or indulging in embezzlement
or misuse of property or resources of a local government; or (iii) possession
of pecuniary sources or 3 (vi) entering into plea bargain under any law for the
time being in force and return the assets or gains acquired through corruption
or corrupt practices, voluntarily; (j) ‘designated officer’ means an officer appointed
as a designated officer under section 81of this Act; (k) ‘Election Commission’’
means the Election Commission of Pakistan established under Article 218 of the
Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan; (l) ‘estate’ means an estate
as defined in clause (9) of section 4 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1967
(XVII of 1967); (m) ‘extra-ordinary meeting’ means a meeting of common
assembly, panchayat or, as the case may be, neighbourhood council other than a
general meeting; (n) ‘general meeting’ with respect to a common assembly means
the meeting referred to in subsection (1) of section 7 of this Act and with
respect to a panchayat or, as the case may be, a neighbourhood council means a
meeting referred to in subsection (1) of section 13 of this Act; (o)
‘Government’ means the Government of the Punjab; (p) ‘High Court’ means Lahore
High Court, Lahore; (q) ‘local fund’ means a local fund of a panchayat or
neighbourhood council established under section 38 of this Act; (r) ‘local
government’ means a local government established under the Punjab Local
Government Act, 2019; (s) ‘local official’ means a head-teacher, patwari,
forest guard, police constable, chaukidar, vaccinator, health worker, canal
overseer, or any other class of public servants for the time being serving the
village, or as the case may be, neighbourhood as notified by the Secretary; (t)
‘member’ means the member of a panchayat or, as the case may be, a
neighbourhood council; (u) ‘misconduct’ means misconduct in terms of section 59
of this Act; (v) ‘Municipal Magistrate’ means a Special Judicial Magistrate
appointed under section 80 of this Act; (w) ‘neighbourhood council’ means a
neighbourhood council constituted under section10 of this Act; (x)
‘neighbourhood’ means an area comprising a distinct and compact inhabitation or
a group of two or more contiguous, distinct and compact inhabitations and
notified as such under section 10 of this Act; (y) ‘panchayat’ means a
panchayat constituted under section 10 of this Act; (z) ‘prescribed’ means prescribed
by rules made by the Government under this Act; (aa) ‘public servant’ means a
public servant as defined in section 21 of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 (XIV of
1860); (bb) ‘resident’ of a village or, as the case may be, of a neighbourhood
shall mean a person who: (i) is, for the time being, a citizen of Pakistan;
(ii) ordinarily resides in the respective village, or as the case may be, in
the respective neighbourhood; (iii) has attained the age of eighteen years on
first January of the corresponding calendar year; and (iv) has not been
declared to be of unsound mind or an undischarged solvent by a competent court;
(cc) ‘Secretary’ means Secretary within the meanings of the Punjab Government
Rules of Business, 2011 in charge of Local Government and Community Development
Department; and (dd) ’village’ means the area comprising an estate. (2) In this
Act, the expressions ‘Metropolitan Corporation’, ‘Municipal Corporation’,
‘Municipal Committee’, and ‘’Town Committee’’ shall have the same meanings as
given in the Punjab Local Government Act 2019.
Further details are available at the copy of the bill in PDF Format. Special thanks to Mr. Naseer Hussain for sensing the copy of The Punjab Village Panchayats and Neighbourhood Councils Bill 2019.
