Appeal No 52659
Appeal by special leave from the judgement and order dated March 3 1958 of the Patna High Court in Misc
case No 940 of 1956
B K Khanna and P D Menon for the appellant
P K Chatterjee for the respondents
April 26
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by WANCHOO J
This is an appeal by special leave against the judgment of the Patna High Court
The brief facts necessary for present purposes are these
There is a colliery in the district of Dhanbad known as Allabad colliery of which the respondents are the owners
On February 5 1955 there was an accident in the colliery as a result of which 52 p6rsons lost their lives
In consequence the Government of India ordered an inquiry into the disaster under section 24 of the  No 35 of 1962 hereinafter referred to as the Act
The court of inquiry contained of Mr Justice B P Jamuar and two persons were appointed to assist him as assessors
The court of inquiry submitted its report on September 26 1955 which was published on December 17 1955
A question was raised before the court of inquiry whether the management should be ordered to pay the expenses of the inquiry as provided by r 22 of the Mines Rules 1955 hereinafter referred to as The Rules which lays down that if a court of 478 inquiry finds that the accident was due to any carelessness or negligence on the part of the management the court may direct the owners of the mine to pay all or any part of the expenses of the inquiry in such manner and within such time as the court may specify
The court of inquiry found in its report that the accident was due to negligence on the part of the management and therefore ordered the owners to pay the expenses of the inquiry
The amount of the expenses to be paid were however not quantified in the report of September 26 1955
On July 271956 the Chief Inspector of Mines requested Mr Justice Jamuar that the amount of expenses should be specified and the manner in which it should be paid and the time within which the payment might be made might be fixed
Notices were issued to the parties concerned thereafter and on September 7 1956 Mr Justice Jamuar ordered the owners to pay Rs 177782as expenses of the inquiry within two months of the date of the order
Thereupon a petition was filed under article 226 of the Constitution by the respondents challenging the order of September 7 1956
It was conceded there in that r 22 of the Rules conferred power on the court of inquiry to direct the owner to pay all or any part of the expenses of inquiry within such time as the court may specify
But the order passed in this case was challenged on three grounds firstly that the court of inquiry became functus officio after it had submitted its report on September 26 1955 and therefore Mr Justice Jamuar had no power left to pass the order of September 7 1959
It was also contended that if the order of September 7 1956 be treated as a review of the order of September 26 1956 it would still be void as there was no power of review in the court of inquiry Lastly
it was urged that when the order of September 479 7 1956 was passed the assessors were not present and were not associated with the inquiry and therefore Mr Justice Jamuar could not pass the order alone
All these three contentions were accepted by the High Court and it allowed the writ petition adding that it was not interfering with the order relating to expenses made by Mr Justice Jamuar in his report of September 26 1955
It is this order of the High Court which is being challenged before us
The main contention on behalf of the respondents is that as the court of inquiry became functus officio after the report of September 26 1955 it was not open to Mr Justice Jamuar to quantify the expenses by the order of September 7 1956
Before we deal with this main argument we should like to dispose of briefly the other two submissions made before the High Court which were also accepted by it
The first of these contentions is that the order of September 7 1957 is an order of review and as there is no power of review granted to the court of inquiry
Mr Justice Jamuar had no power to pass that order
It is enough to say that the order of September 7 1956 cannot be called an order of review
We have already pointed out that the order that the owners should pay the expenses of the inquiry was already incorporated in the report of September 26 1955 though it was not quantified
All that the order of September 7 1956 has done is to quantify the amount of expenses
Therefore this order cannot be treated as a review or any variation of the order passed in the report of September 26 1955
It would have been a different matter if no order as to the payment of expenses had been made in the report of September 26 1955
In that case it may have been possible for the respondents to argue that the later order was an order reviewing the failure to am an order as to expenses in
the report
But 480 when the report itself contained the order for payment of expenses the later order is merely a quantification of that order and would be on a par with what happens every day in courts which pass decrees with costs
When giving judgment courts do not quantify costs in the judgment
This quan tification is done later in the office of the court and if there is any dispute about it the court settles that dispute and then includes the cost in the decree or final order
What has happened in the present case is something similar and the order of Mr Justice Jamuar dated September 7 1956 cannot in  the circumstances be called an order of review which he had no power to pass
The contention therefore under this head must fail
Turning now to the other contention namely that the order of September 7 1956 was bad because the two assessors were not associated with Mr Justice Jamuar when the order was passed it is enough to say that under section 24 1 the inquiry is held by a competent person appointed for the purpose and assessor are appointed to assist the person appointed to hold the inquiry
Even so the person who holds the inquiry is the person appointed to do so and the assessors need not in our opinion be associated with him in all orders which are in the nature of ministerial orders and quantification of expenses must be treated as an order of a ministerial nature
It is not disputed that the assessors were associated with Mr Justice Jamuar when the report of September 26 1955 was made and it was ordered that the owners should pay the expenses of the inquiry
That was in our opinion the order of the court of inquiry as to payment of expenses and in that the assessors were associated
The later order wag mere quantification of that and it was in our opinion not necessary that the assessors should be associated at that stage also for the 481 order of quantification is more or less of a ministerial nature and was made by the person who was appointed to hold the inquiry
In the circumstances we are of opinion that the fact that the order of September 7 1956 was passed only by Mr Justice Jamuar and the assessors were not associated with him would not make it invalid for this was merely carrying out the order in the report of September 26 1956 by which the owners were ordered to pay the expenses of the inquiry and in that order the assessors were associated
The contention on this head also must therefore fail
This brings us to the main contention raised on behalf of the respondents namely that the court of inquiry became functus officio when the report was made on September 26 1955 and thereafter it was not open to Mr Justice Jamuar to pass any order quantifying the expenses
Now it is not in dispute that there was no time fixed within which the report had to be made by the court of inquiry
Therefore it cannot be said that the period for which the court of inquiry was appointed came necessarily to an end on September 26 1955 and so the court of inquiry became functus officio on that date
If the court of inquiry when it submitted its report in this case on September 26 1955 had ordered the owners to pay the expenses of the inquiry and had added further that expenses would be quantified later by the person holding the inquiry it could not possibly be argued that it was not open to the person appointed to hold the inquiry to quantify the expenses later
But it is said that in this case though the court of inquiry ordered that the expenses should be paid by the owners it did not say in the report that the expenses to be paid would be quantified later by the person appointed to hold the inquiry
That is undoubtedly so
But we have to see what the order in the report of Septmber 26 1955 by which the owners were 482 ordered to pay the expenses of the inquiry necessarily implies
It is obvious that the intention of the court of inquiry was that the owners should pay the expenses
Generally it may Dot be possible to quantify the expenses incurred in the inquiry at that stage and a quantification of expenses would ordinarily take place after the report is submitted
It seems to us therefore clear that when a court of inquiry orders that the owners shall pay the expenses such an order necessarily carries with it the implication that the person appointed to hold the inquiry would later quantify the expenses after necessary materials are put before him
This is exactly what happened in this case
After the order of the court of inquiry that the owners should pay the expenses was known to the Chief Inspector of Mines he applied that the expenses should be quantified and Mr Justice Jamuar passed the order doing so
The order therefore that was passed on September 7 1956 was merely a consequential order to what the court of inquiry had decided on September 26 1955 and in our view the earlier order of September 26 1955 had necessarily implicit in it that the person appointed to hold the inquiry would quantify the expenses as soon as the materials for that purpose are placed before him
It was not necessary therefore to say in so many words in the report of September 26 1955 that the expenses would be quantified by the person appointed to hold the inquiry later on materials being placed before him
If this were not to be implicit in the order that was passed on September 26 1955 that order would be completely useless for it does not specify the amount which could be recovered as expenses
We are therefore of opinion that when such an order is passed in a report of a court of inquiry it necessarily carries with it the implication that the person appointed to hold the inquiry would quantify the expenses later on materials being 483 placed before him as otherwise such an order would be rendered completely nugatory
Therefore unless we find anything in section 24 which prevents such an order of quantification being passed later by the person appointed to hold the inquiry we see no reason why such a quantification should not be made later
We have also pointed out that the order appointing the court of inquiry in this case did not fix a date by which the report was to be made
Therefore in these circumstances we are of opinion that it was open to Mr Justice Jamuar to quantify the expenses and that it was not necessary that at that stage the assessors should be associated with him
We are therefore of opinion that it cannot be said that the person appointed to hold the inquiry was functus officio in this case and could not quantify the expenses in accordance with the direction contained in the report of September 26 1955
The appeal is hereby allowed and the order of the High Court is set aside
The High Court has allowed no costs in its order in the circumstances we think that the parties should bear their own costs of this Court
Appeal allowed


Summary:
The Government of India under section 24 of the  ordered an enquiry into the disaster in the respondent s colliery
The Court of inquiry submitted its reporto 476 September 26 1955 and found inter alia that the accident was due to the negligence on the part of the management and therefore ordered the owners to pay the expenses of the en quiry as provided by r 22 of the Mines Rules 1955
The amount of the expenses to be paid were however not quanti fied in the report
At the request of Chief Inspector Mines the judge of the Court of Inquiry after due notice to the parties concerned quantified the expenses by his order dated September 7 1956
The respondents petitioned under article 226 of the Constitution challenging the order quantifying the expenses on three grounds 1 the Court of Inquiry became functus officio after it had submitted its report and therefore the judge had no power left to pass the order quantifying the expenses
If the said order was to be treated as review of the order awarding expenses it would still be void as there was no power of review in the Court of Inquiry 3 When the order quantifying the expense was passed the two assessor were not present and were not associated with the enquiry therefore the judge could not pass the order alone
The High Court allowed the writ petition adding that it was not interfering with the order relating to expenses made by the judge in his report dated September 26 1955
Held that when an order to pay expenses is passed without quantifying the amount in a report by a Court of Inquiry it necessarily carries with it the implication that the person appointed to hold the enquiry would quantify the expenses later in materials being placed before him as otherwise such an order would be rendered completely nugatory
Where no time was fixed within which the report had to be made by the Court of enquiry it cannot be said that the period for which the Court of enquiry was appointed necessarily came to an end with the submitting of the report and this Court of Inquiry became functus officio
Held further that when the report itself contained the order for payment for expenses the later order is merely a quantification of the earlier order and would be on a par with what happens everyday in courts which pass decrees with costs
When giving judgment courts do not quantify cost in the judgment
Therefore the order dated September 7 1956 cannot be treated as a review or any variation of the order pawed in the report of September 26 1955 which the judge had no powers to pass
Held also that it was open to the judge of the Court of inquiry to quantify the expenses and that it was not necessary that at that stage the assessors should be associated with him
Under section 241 of the Act the enquiry is held by a competent 477 person for the purpose and assessors are appointed to assist the person to hold the enquiry and the assessors need not be associated with him in all orders which are in the nature of ministerial order and quantification of expenses must be treated as an order of a ministerial nature