WP(C) 4926/2010 BEFORE THE HON’BLE MR JUSTICE T. VAIPHEI Heard Mr. A.M. Mazumdar, learned Senior counsel assisted by Mr. M.U. Man dal, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. B.N. Gogoi, learned State Counse l appearing for the State respondents. The petitioners are aggrieved by the Noti fication dated 13.8.2010 issued by the Urban Development Department, Govt. of As sam u/s. 336 constituted Town Committee at Patharkandi in Karimganj District w ithout hearing their objections though they claim to reside in the affected are as. What prompted the petitioners to file this writ petition is that they, being the Panchayat representatives of Patharkandi Gaon Panchayat, Patharkandi Anchal ik Panchayat, Patharkandi Zilla Parishad, are not given an opportunity of heari ng by the respondents while issuing impugned Notification; even though they have included certain areas in Patharkandi Town which are far away from the Pathark andi Headquarters while certain areas also got excluded from the Patharkandi To wn Committee which are located adjacent to the Town Committee under the Karimgan j District. Mr. A.M. Mazumdar, learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner submits that the allegations of the petitioner have been admitted by the State Responde nts in their affidavit-in-opposition. He draws my attention to paragraph 5 of th e Affidavit-in-opposition which concedes that no opportunity of hearing was affo rded to the petitioners :- 5. That with regard to the statements made in Paragraph 4 of the wr it petition, the deponent begs to state that some objections were received by t he Govt. after the expiry of the said period of 42 days, even then a decision wa s taken to hear those objections. A. WT Message to that effect was sent to the D eputy Commissioner, Karimganj on 21.3.07., copy enclosed. Several other dates we re also fixed but no hearing could take place. Of course no such hearing was req uired the period of 42 days, as per the legal requirement, regulating the matter . Section 334 (3) of the Assam Municipal Act, 1956 plainly indicates that if any inhabitant of the specified area to be included in a particular Town Comm ittee desire to object to the notification issued under Sub-section (1) he may w ithin six weeks from the date of publication, submit his objection in writing to the State Government through the Deputy Commissioner, and the State Government shall take his objection into consideration. The paragraph extracted from the af fidavit-in-opposition filed by the State respondents has re-inforced the submiss ion of the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners that petitioners were not heard by the State Government. As the rights and interests of petitioners are be ing affected adversely in constituting the notified area u/s. 334 (1) of the Act , right of hearing of the objection is mandatory in nature, which is in conformi ty of Article 14 of the Constitution. For what has been stated above, the writ petition is allowed. The Notification d ated 13.8.2010 issued by the respondent No. 2 is hereby quashed. The State respo ndents are directed to take a fresh decision on constitution of re-notified area after giving an opportunity of hearing to the petitioners and thereafter take a decision in accordance with law.