Case: M. Pentiah And Others Vs. Muddala Veeramallappa And Others

Subba Rao, J. 1. This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad dismissing the petition filed by the appellants under Art. 226 of the Constitution to issue a writ of quo warranto against respondents 1 to 10 directing them to exhibit an information as to the authority under which they are functioning as members of the Vicarabad Municipal Committee and to restrain them from selling certain plots of land belonging to the Municipality to third parties. Vicarabad was originally situate in the Part B State of Hyderabad and is now in the State of Andhra Pradesh. The Municipal Committee of Vicarabad was constituted under the Hyderabad Municipal and Town Committees Act (XXVII of 1951). In the year 1953 respondents 1 to 10 were elected, and five others, who are not parties before us, were nominated, to that Committee. On November 27, 1953, the Rajpramukh of the State Hyderabad published a notification under the relevant Acts in the Hyderabad Government Gazette Extraordinary notifying the above persons as members of the said Committee. Presumably with a view to democratize the local institutions in that part of the country and to bring them on a par with those prevailing in the neighbouring States, the Hyderabad District Municipalities Act, 1956 (XVIII of 1956), (hereinafter referred to as the Act), was passed by the Hyderabad Legislature and it received the assent of the President on August 9, 1956. Under S. 320 of the Act the Hyderabad Municipal and Town Committees Act, 1951 (XXVII of 1951) and other connected Acts were repealed. As a transitory measure, under the same section any Committee constituted under the enactment so repealed was deemed to have been constituted under the Act and the members of the said Committee were to continue to hold office till the first meeting of the Committee was called under S. 35 of the Act. Under that provision respondents 1 to 10 and the five nominated members continued to function as members of the Municipal Committee. In or about the year 1958 the said Committee acquired land measuring acres 15-7 guntas described as "Varad Raja Omar Bagh" for Rs. 18,000 for the purpose of establishing a grain market (gunj). For one reason or other, the Municipal Committee was not in a position to construct the grain market and run it departmentally. The Committee, therefore, after taking the permission of the Government, resolved by a requisite majority to sell the said land to third parties with a condition that the vendee or vendees should construct a building or buildings for running a grain market. Thereafter the Committee sold the land in different plots to third parties; but the sale deeds were not executed in view of the interim order made in the writ petition by the High Court and subsequently in the appeal by this Court. 2. In the writ petition the appellants contended, inter alia, that the respondents ceased to be members of the Municipal Committee on the expiry of three years from the date the new Act came into force and that, therefore, they had no right to sell the land, and that, in any view, the sale made by the Committee of the property acquired for the purpose of constructing a market was ultra vires the provisions of the Act. The respondents contested the petition on various grounds. The learned Judges of the High Court dismissed the petition with costs for the following reasons :1. The old Committee will continue to function till a new Committee comes into existence. 2. "Section 76 contemplates that property vested in it under Ss. 72(f), 73 and 74 should be transferred only to Government. Here, the transfer is not in favour of the Government. That apart we are told that in this case sanction of the Government was obtained at every stage. It cannot be predicated that the purpose for which the properties are being disposed of is not for a public purpose. It is not disputed that the properties are being sold only to persons who are required to build grain market." 3. The act now opposed is not in any way in conflict with the provisions of Ss. 244, 245 and 247. 4. "It looks to us that the petitioners lack in bona fides and that this petition is not conceived in the interests of the public." The present appeal, as aforesaid, was filed by special leave granted by this Court. 3. Mr. P. A. Chowdury, learned counsel for the appellants, canvassed the correctness of the findings of the High Court. His first argument may be summarized thus : Under S. 320 of the Act any Committee constituted under the repealed enactment shall be deemed to have been constituted under the Act and the members of the said Committee shall continue to hold office till the first meeting of the Committee is called under S. 35 of the Act. Under S. 35 of the Act, the first meeting of the Committee shall not be held on a date prior to the date on which the term of the outgoing members expires under S. 34. Section 34 of the Act provides that the members shall hold office for a term of three years. Therefore, the term of the members of the Committee deemed to have been constituted under S. 320 is three years from the date on which the Act came into force. If the term fixed under S. 34 does not apply to the members of the said Committee, the result will be that the said members will continue to hold office indefinitely, for the first meeting of the Committee could not be legally convened under the Act as S. 16 which enables the Collector to do so imposes a duty on him to hold a general election within three months before the expiry of the term of office of the members of the Committee as specified in S. 34. and, as no definite term has been prescribed for the members of the Committee under S. 320, the election machinery fails, with the result that the members of the "deemed" Committee would continue to be members of the said Committee indefinitely. On this interpretation learned counsel contends that the section would be void for the following reasons : (1) S. 320(1)(a) of the Act would be ultra vires the powers of the State Legislature under Art. 246 of the Constitution, read with entry 5, List II, VII Schedule; (2) the said section deprives the appellants of the right to equality and equal protection of the laws guaranteed under Art. 14 of the Constitution; (3) S. 320 would be void also as inconsistent with the entire scheme of the provisions of the Act.4. Let us first test the validity of the construction of S. 320 of the Act suggested by the learned counsel. The material part of S. 320 reads :"(1) The Hyderabad Municipal and Town Committees Act, 1951, (XXVII of 1951)..............(is) hereby repealed; provided that :- (a) any Committee constituted under the enactment so repealed (hereinafter referred to in this section as the said Committee) shall be deemed to have been constituted under this Act, and Members of the said Committee shall continue to hold office till the first meeting of the Committee is called under section 35;". The terms of the section are clear and do not lend any scope for argument. The section makes a distinction between the "said" Committee and the Committee elected under the Act and says, "Members of the said Committee shall continue to hold office till the first meeting of the Committee is called under S. 35". Though the words "Committee" is defined in S. 2(5) to mean a Municipal or Town Committee established or deemed to be established under the Act, that definition must give way if there is anything repugnant in the subject or context. As the section makes a clear distinction between the "said" Committee and the Committee elected under the Act, in the context, the Committee in S. 320 cannot mean the Committee elected under the Act. The term fixed, for the members of the Committee constituted under the Act cannot apply to the members of the Committee deemed to have been constituted under the Act. Section 32 which provides for the culminating stage of the process of election under the Act says that the names of all members finally elected to any Committee shall be forthwith published in the official Gazette. Section 34 prescribes the term of office of the members so elected. Under it, "except as is otherwise provided in this Act. members shall hold office for a term of three years". Section 320(1)(a) provides a different term for the members of the Committee deemed to have been constituted under the Act. Thereunder, the term is fixed not by any number of years but by the happening of an event. The Committee constituted under S. 320 clearly falls under the exception. But it is suggested that the exception refers only to S. 28 whereunder a member of a Committee ceases to be one by a supervening disqualification. Firstly, this section does not fix a term but only imposes a disqualification on the basis of a term fixed under S. 34; secondly, assuming that the said section also fixes a term, the exception may as well cover both the deviations from the normal rule. That apart, sub-sec. (2) of S. 34 dispels any doubt that may arise on the construction of sub-section (1) of the section. Under sub-section (2), the term of office of such members shall be deemed to commence on the date of the first meeting called by the Collector under S. 35. Section 35 directs the Collector to call a meeting after giving at least five clear days notice within thirty days from the date of the publication of the names of members under S. 32. This provision clearly indicates that the members of the Committee mentioned in S. 34 are only the members elected under the Act and not members of the Committee deemed to have been elected under the Act, for, in the case of the latter Committee, no publication under S. 32 is provided for and therefore the provisions of S. 35 cannot apply to them. It is, therefore, manifest that the term prescribed in S. 34 cannot apply to a member of the "deemed" Committee. 5. Let us now see whether this interpretation would necessarily lead us to hold that the members of the "deemed" Committee under S. 320(1)(a) would have an indefinite duration. This result, it is suggested, would flow from a correct interpretation of the relevant provisions of S. 16 of the Act. The judgment of the High Court does not disclose that any argument was addressed before that Court on the basis of S. 16 of the Act. But we allowed the learned counsel to raise the point as in effect it is only a link in the chain of his argument to persuade us to hold in his favour on the construction of S. 320. 6. Before we consider this argument in some detail, it will be convenient at this stage to notice some of the well established rules of construction which would help us to steer clear of the complications created by the Act. Maxwell "On the Interpretation of Statutes", 10th edn., says at p. 7 thus :".........if the choice is between two interpretations, the narrower of which would fail to achieve the manifest purpose of the legislation, we should avoid a construction which would reduce the legislation to futility and should rather accept the bolder construction based on the view that Parliament would legislate only for the purpose of bringing about an effective result." It is said in Craies on Statute Law, 5th edn., at p. 82 :"Manifest absurdity or futility, palpable injustice, or absurd inconvenience or anomaly to be avoided." Lord Davey in Canada Sugar Refining Co. v. R., 1898 AC 735 provides another useful guide of correct perspective to such a problem in the following words :"Every clause of a statute should be construed with reference to the context and the other clauses of the Act, so as, so far as possible, to make a consistent enactment of the whole statute or series of statutes relating to the subject-matter." 7. To appreciate the problem presented and to give an adequate answer to the same, it would be necessary and convenient to notice the scheme of the Act as reflected in the relevant sections, namely, Ss. 16, 17, 18, 20, 32, 34 and 320. The said scheme of the Act may be stated thus: Under the Act, there are general elections and elections to casual vacancies. The general elections may be in regard to the first election after the Act came into force or to the subsequent elections under the Act. Section 5 imposes a duty on the Government to constitute a Municipal Committee for each town and notify the date when it shall come into existence. Section 17 enjoins on the Government to issue a notification calling upon all the constituencies to elect members in accordance with the provisions of the Act on or before such date or dates as may be specified in the said notification. Section 16 imposes a duty upon the Collector to hold a general election in the manner prescribed within three months before the expiry of the term of office of the members of the Committee as specified in S. 34 of the Act. Sub-section (2) of S. 16 provides for a bye-election for filling up of a casual vacancy. Section 18 enables the Collector with the approval of the Government to designate or nominate a Returning Officer. Section 19 imposes a duty upon such an officer to do all such acts and things as may be necessary for effectually conducting the election in the manner provided by the Act and the rules made thereunder. Section 20 authorizes the Collector to issue a notification in the Official Gazette appointing the dates for making nominations, for the scrutiny of nominations, for the withdrawal of candidatures and for the holding of the poll. After the elections are held in the manner prescribed the names of all the members finally elected to any Committee shall be published in the Official Gazette. Except as otherwise provided in the Act, S. 34 prescribes the term of three years for a member so elected. As a transitory provision till such an election is held, S. 320 says that the members of the previous Committee constituted under the earlier Act shall be deemed to be constituted under the Act and the members thereof shall hold office till the first meeting of the Committee is called under S. 35 of the Act. 8. It is clear from the aforesaid provisions that the Government notifies the dates calling upon all the constituencies to elect the members before such date or dates prescribed; the Collector holds the election and fixes the dates for the various stages of the process of election; the Returning Officer appointed by the Collector does all acts and things necessary for effectually conducting the election. 9. On the general scheme of the Act we do not see any legal objection to the Collector holding the first elections under the Act. The legal obstacle for such a course is sought to be raised on the wording of S. 16(1).Section 16(1) reads :"Every general election requisite for the purpose of this Act shall be held by the Collector in the manner prescribed within three months before the expiry of the term of office of the members of the Committee as specified in section 34." 10. The argument is that the Collectors power to hold a general election is confined to S. 16(1) and, as in the case of the members of the Committee deemed to have been constituted under the Act the second limb of the section cannot apply and as the Collectors power is limited by the second limb of the section, the Collector has no power to hold the first general election under the Act. If this interpretation be accepted, the Act would become a dead-letter and the obvious intention of the Legislature would be defeated. Such a construction cannot be accepted except in cases of absolute intractability of the language used. 11. While the Legislature repealed the earlier Act with an express intention to constitute new Committees on broad-based democratic principles, by this interpretation the Committee under the old Act perpetuates itself indefinitely. In our view, S. 16(1) does not have any such effect. Section 16(1) may be read along with the aforesaid other relevant provisions of the Act. If so read, it would be clear that it could not apply to the first election after the Act came into force, but should be confined to subsequent elections. So far as the first general election is concerned, there is a self-contained and integrated machinery for holding the election without in any way calling in aid the provisions of S. 16(1). Section 17 applies to all elections, that is, general as well as bye-elections. It applies to the first general election as well as subsequent general elections. The proviso to that section says that for the purpose of holding elections under sub-sec. (1) of S. 16 no such notification shall be issued at any time earlier than four months before the expiry of the term of office of the members of the Committee as specified in S. 34.The proviso can be given full meaning, for it provides only for a case covered by S. 16(1) and, as the first general election is outside the scope of S. 16(1), it also falls outside the scope of the proviso to S.17. Under S. 17, therefore, the Government, in respect of the first general election, calls upon all the constituencies to elect members before the date or dates fixed by it. Under S. 20, the Collector fixes the dates for the various stages of the election. The Returning Officer does all the acts and things necessary for conducting the election and when the election process is completed, the names of the members elected are published. All these can be done without reference to S. 16(1), for the Collector is also empowered under S. 20 to hold the elections. In this view, there cannot be any legal difficulty for conducting the first election after the Act came into force. If so, the term of the members of the Committee deemed to have been elected would come to an end when the first meeting of the Committee was called under S. 35.The Legislature in enacting the law not only assumed but also expected that the Government would issue the requisite notification under S. 17 of the Act within a reasonable time from the date when the Act came into force. The scheme of the Act came into force. The scheme of the Act should be judged on that basis; if so judged, the sections disclose an integrated scheme giving S. 320 a transitory character. 12. It is conceded by learned counsel that if S. 320(1)(a) is constructed in the manner we do, the other points particularised above do not arise for consideration. 13. Before leaving this part of the case we must observe that the difficulty is created not by the provisions of the Act but by the fact of the Government not proceeding under Sec. 17 of the Act within a reasonable time from the date on which the Act came into force. This is a typical case of the legislative intention being obstructed or deflected by the inaction of the executive. 14. Mr. Ram Reddy, learned counsel for the respondents, states that there are many good reasons why the Government did not implement the Act. There may be many such reasons, but when the Legislature made an Act in 1956, with a view to democratize municipal administration in that part of the country so as to bring it on a par with that obtaining in other States, it is no answer to say that the Government had good reasons for not implementing the Act. If the Government had any such reasons, that might be an occasion for moving the Legislature to repeal the Act or to amend it. If the affected parties had filed a writ of mandamus in time, this situation could have been avoided; but it was not done. We hope and trust that the Government would take immediate steps to hold elections to the Municipal Committee so that the body constituted as early as 1953, under a different Act could be replaced by an elected body under the Act. 15. Even so, learned counsel for the appellants contends that the Municipal Committee had no power to sell the land acquired by it for constructing a market. To appreciate this contention it would be convenient to notice the relevant provisions of the Act. Under S. 72(f) all land or other property transferred to the Committee by the Government or the District Board or acquired by gift, purchase, or otherwise for local purposes shall vest in and be under the control of the Committee. Section 73 enables the Government, in consultation with the Committee, to direct that any property, movable or immovable, which is vested in it, shall vest in such Committee. Section 74 empowers the Government on the request of the Committee to acquire any land for the purposes of the Act. Under S. 76, the Committee may, with the sanction of the Government, transfer to the Government any property vested in the Committee under sections 72(f), 73 and 74, but not so as to affect any trust or public right subject to which the property is held. Learned counsel contends that, as the land was acquired by the Committee for the construction of a market, the Committee has power to transfer the same to the Government only subject to the conditions laid down in S. 76, and that it has no power to sell the land to third parties. This argument ignores the express intention of S. 77 of the Act. Section 77 says :"Subject to such exceptions as the Government may be general or special order direct no Committee shall transfer any immovable property except in pursuance of a resolution passed at a meeting by a majority of not less than two-third of the whole number of members and in accordance with rules made under this Act, and no Committee shall transfer any property which has been vested in it by the Government except with the sanction of the Government; Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to leases of immovable property for a term not exceeding three years". a resolution passed at a meeting by a majority of not less than two-third of the whole number of members and in accordance with rules shall transfer any property which has been vested in it by the Government except with the sanction of the Government; Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to leases of immovable property for a term not exceeding three years". This section confers on the Committee an express power couched in a negative form. Negative words are clearly prohibitory and are ordinarily used as a legislative device to make a statute imperative. If the section is recast in an affirmative form, it reads to the effect that the Committee shall have power to transfer any immovable property, if the conditions laid down under the section are complied with. The conditions laid down are : (1) there shall be a resolution passed at a meeting by a majority of not less than two-third of the whole number of members of the Committee; (2) it shall be in accordance with the rules made under the Act; (3) in the case of a property vested in it by the Government, the transfer can be made only with the sanction of the Government; and (4) the sale is not exempted by the Government, by general or special order, from the operation of S. 77 of the Act. It is not disputed that the relevant conditions have been complied with in the present case. If so, the power of the Committee to alienate the property cannot be questioned. 16. Learned counsel contends that the provisions of S. 76 govern the situation and that S. 77 may apply only to a property vested in the Committee under provisions other than those of S. 72(f), 73 and 74, and that further, if a wider interpretation was given to S. 77, while under S. 76 the transfer in favour of the Government would be subject to a trust or public right, under S. 77 it would be free from it if it was transferred to a private party. The first objection has no force, as there are no sections other than Ss. 72, 73 and 74 whereunder the Government vests property in a Committee. The second objection also has no merits, for the trust or public right mentioned in S. 76 does not appear to relate to the purpose for which the property is purchased but to the trust or public right existing over the property so alienated by the Committee. Further the proviso to S. 77, which says, "nothing in this section shall apply to leases of immovable property for a term not exceeding three years" indicates that the main section applies also to the property vested in the Committee under the previous section, for it exempts from the operation of the operative part of S. 77 leases for a term not exceeding three years in respect of properties covered by the preceding section and other sections. This interpretation need not cause any apprehension that a Committee may squander away the municipal property, for S. 77 is hedged in by four conditions and the conditions afford sufficient guarantee against improper and improvident alienations. 17. In this context learned counsel for the appellants invoked the doctrine of law that an action of a statutory corporation may be ultra vires its powers without being illegal and also the principle that when a statute confers an express power, a power inconsistent with that expressly given cannot be implied. It is not necessary to consider all the decisions cited, as learned counsel for the respondents does not canvass the correctness of the said principles. It would, therefore, be sufficient to notice two of the decisions cited at the Bar. The decision in Wenlock (Baroness) v. River Dee Co., (1885) 10 AC 354 is relied upon in support of the proposition that when a corporation is authorised to do an act subject to certain conditions, it must be deemed to have been prohibited to do the said act except in accordance with the provisions of that Act which confers the authority on it. Where by Act 14 and 15 Vict. a company was empowered to borrow at interest for the purposes of the concerned Acts, subject to certain conditions, it was held that the company was prohibited by the said Act from borrowing except in accordance with the provisions of that Act. Strong reliance is placed on the decision in Attorney-General v. Fulham Corporation, 1921-1 Ch. D 440. There, in exercise of the powers conferred under the Baths and Wash-houses Acts, the Metropolitan Borough of Fulham propounded a scheme in substitution of an earlier one whereunder it installed a wash-house to which persons resorted for washing their clothes bringing their own wash materials and utilised the facilities offered by the municipality on payment of the prescribed charges. Sarjant, J., held that the object of the legislation was to provide for persons who became customers facilities for doing their own washing, but the scheme provided for washing by the municipality itself and the, therefore, it was ultra vires the statute. In coming to that conclusion the learned Judge, after considering an earlier decision on the subject, applied the following principle to the facts of the case before him :"That recognises that in every case it is for a corporation of this kind to show that it has affirmatively an authority to do particular acts; but that in applying that principle, the rule is not to be applied too narrowly, and the corporation is entitled to do not only that which is expressly authorised but that which is reasonably incidental to or consequential upon that which is in terms authorized." The principle so stated is unobjectionable. 18. The correctness of these principles also need not be canvassed, for the construction we have placed on the provisions of the Act does not run counter to any of these principles. We have held that section 77 confers an express power on the Municipal Committee to sell property, subject to the conditions mentioned therein. Therefore, the impugned sales are not ultra vires the powers of the Committee. In view of the said express power, no prohibition can be implied from the provisions of S. 76. 19. Learned counsel further contends that the statutory power can be exercised only for the purposes sanctioned by the statute, that the sales of the acquired land to private persons were not for one of such purposes, and that, therefore, they were void. The principle that a statutory body can only function within the four corners of the statute is unexceptionable; but the Legislature can confer a power on a statutory corporation to sell its land is equally incontestable. In this case we have held that the statute conferred such a power on the Municipal Committee, subject to stringent limitations. Many situations can be visualized when such a sale would be necessary and would be to the benefit of the corporation. Of course the price fetched by such sales can only be utilised for the purposes sanctioned by the Act. 20. The last point raised is that the learned Judges of the High Court were not justified in holding on the materials placed before them that the appellants lacked in bona fides and that the petition filed by them was not conceived in the interests of the public. We do not find any material on the record to sustain this finding. Indeed, but for the petitioner-appellants the extraordinary situation created by the inaction of the Government in the matter of implementing the Act, affecting thereby the municipal administration of all the districts in Telengana area, might not have been brought to light. We cannot describe the action of the appellants either mala fide or frivolous.

Decision reasoning: 0[ds]Section 35 directs the Collector to call a meeting after giving at least five clear days notice within thirty days from the date of the publication of the names of members under S. 32. This provision clearly indicates that the members of the Committee mentioned in S. 34 are only the members elected under the Act and not members of the Committee deemed to have been elected under the Act, for, in the case of the latter Committee, no publication under S. 32 is provided for and therefore the provisions of S. 35 cannot apply to them. It is, therefore, manifest that the term prescribed in S. 34 cannot apply to a member of the "deemed" Committee10. The argument is that the Collectors power to hold a general election is confined to S. 16(1) and, as in the case of the members of the Committee deemed to have been constituted under the Act the second limb of the section cannot apply and as the Collectors power is limited by the second limb of the section, the Collector has no power to hold the first general election under the Act. If this interpretation be accepted, the Act would become a dead-letter and the obvious intention of the Legislature would be defeated. Such a construction cannot be accepted except in cases of absolute intractability of the language used11. While the Legislature repealed the earlier Act with an express intention to constitute new Committees on broad-based democratic principles, by this interpretation the Committee under the old Act perpetuates itself indefinitely. In our view, S. 16(1) does not have any such effect. Section 16(1) may be read along with the aforesaid other relevant provisions of the Act. If so read, it would be clear that it could not apply to the first election after the Act came into force, but should be confined to subsequent elections. So far as the first general election is concerned, there is a self-contained and integrated machinery for holding the election without in any way calling in aid the provisions of S. 16(1). Section 17 applies to all elections, that is, general as well as bye-elections. It applies to the first general election as well as subsequent general elections. The proviso to that section says that for the purpose of holding elections under sub-sec. (1) of S. 16 no such notification shall be issued at any time earlier than four months before the expiry of the term of office of the members of the Committee as specified in S. 34.The proviso can be given full meaning, for it provides only for a case covered by S. 16(1) and, as the first general election is outside the scope of S. 16(1), it also falls outside the scope of the proviso to S17. Under S. 17, therefore, the Government, in respect of the first general election, calls upon all the constituencies to elect members before the date or dates fixed by it. Under S. 20, the Collector fixes the dates for the various stages of the election. The Returning Officer does all the acts and things necessary for conducting the election and when the election process is completed, the names of the members elected are published. All these can be done without reference to S. 16(1), for the Collector is also empowered under S. 20 to hold the elections. In this view, there cannot be any legal difficulty for conducting the first election after the Act came into force. If so, the term of the members of the Committee deemed to have been elected would come to an end when the first meeting of the Committee was called under S. 35.The Legislature in enacting the law not only assumed but also expected that the Government would issue the requisite notification under S. 17 of the Act within a reasonable time from the date when the Act came into force. The scheme of the Act came into force. The scheme of the Act should be judged on that basis; if so judged, the sections disclose an integrated scheme giving S. 320 a transitory characterThere may be many such reasons, but when the Legislature made an Act in 1956, with a view to democratize municipal administration in that part of the country so as to bring it on a par with that obtaining in other States, it is no answer to say that the Government had good reasons for not implementing the Act. If the Government had any such reasons, that might be an occasion for moving the Legislature to repeal the Act or to amend it. If the affected parties had filed a writ of mandamus in time, this situation could have been avoided; but it was not done. We hope and trust that the Government would take immediate steps to hold elections to the Municipal Committee so that the body constituted as early as 1953, under a different Act could be replaced by an elected body under the ActTo appreciate this contention it would be convenient to notice the relevant provisions of the Act. Under S. 72(f) all land or other property transferred to the Committee by the Government or the District Board or acquired by gift, purchase, or otherwise for local purposes shall vest in and be under the control of the Committee. Section 73 enables the Government, in consultation with the Committee, to direct that any property, movable or immovable, which is vested in it, shall vest in such Committee. Section 74 empowers the Government on the request of the Committee to acquire any land for the purposes of the Act. Under S. 76, the Committee may, with the sanction of the Government, transfer to the Government any property vested in the Committee under sections 72(f), 73 and 74, but not so as to affect any trust or public right subject to which the property is heldThis section confers on the Committee an express power couched in a negative form. Negative words are clearly prohibitory and are ordinarily used as a legislative device to make a statute imperative. If the section is recast in an affirmative form, it reads to the effect that the Committee shall have power to transfer any immovable property, if the conditions laid down under the section are complied with. The conditions laid down are : (1) there shall be a resolution passed at a meeting by a majority of not less than two-third of the whole number of members of the Committee; (2) it shall be in accordance with the rules made under the Act; (3) in the case of a property vested in it by the Government, the transfer can be made only with the sanction of the Government; and (4) the sale is not exempted by the Government, by general or special order, from the operation of S. 77 of the Act. It is not disputed that the relevant conditions have been complied with in the present case. If so, the power of the Committee to alienate the property cannot be questionedThe first objection has no force, as there are no sections other than Ss. 72, 73 and 74 whereunder the Government vests property in a Committee. The second objection also has no merits, for the trust or public right mentioned in S. 76 does not appear to relate to the purpose for which the property is purchased but to the trust or public right existing over the property so alienated by the Committee. Further the proviso to S. 77, which says, "nothing in this section shall apply to leases of immovable property for a term not exceeding three years" indicates that the main section applies also to the property vested in the Committee under the previous section, for it exempts from the operation of the operative part of S. 77 leases for a term not exceeding three years in respect of properties covered by the preceding section and other sections. This interpretation need not cause any apprehension that a Committee may squander away the municipal property, for S. 77 is hedged in by four conditions and the conditions afford sufficient guarantee against improper and improvident alienationsWe do not find any material on the record to sustain this finding. Indeed, but for the petitioner-appellants the extraordinary situation created by the inaction of the Government in the matter of implementing the Act, affecting thereby the municipal administration of all the districts in Telengana area, might not have been brought to light. We cannot describe the action of the appellants either mala fide or frivolousThe principle that a statutory body can only function within the four corners of the statute is unexceptionable; but the Legislature can confer a power on a statutory corporation to sell its land is equally incontestable. In this case we have held that the statute conferred such a power on the Municipal Committee, subject to stringent limitations. Many situations can be visualized when such a sale would be necessary and would be to the benefit of the corporation. Of course the price fetched by such sales can only be utilised for the purposes sanctioned by the Act.