Case: State Of Rajasthan Vs. Leela Jain

construction, for the words have meaning and effect can be given to them without the same conflicting with tiny other operative provision of the Act.15. If the argument that the words should be rejected is not accepted and some meaning has to be attributed to these words, the alternative submission of the learned Counsel for the respondent was that we should read the words orders passed as confined to orders which were appealable orders for which an appeal was provided under a Municipal law. In this connection it was urged that the intention of the framers of the Act was merely to enact a legislation providing for a uniform forum in which appeals for which diverse provisions were made in the Municipal laws of the several Municipalities in the State were to be entertained and disposed of and it would be inconsistent with such an intention to hold that they made a provision for Government revising orders which according to the relevant Municipal Law were final and not subject to any appeal. This argument though plausible does not appear to us to be sound or maintainable on any proper construction of the words employed. If the learned Counsel is right, the clause would read "The Government may.......... call for any record of any case........... of any appealable order passed by a Commissioner or by a Municipal authority and may pass such orders..........." This would show how impossible it is to read the word order as confined to appealable orders which is what the learned Counsel suggests as the proper construction of the proviso, for it would at once be seen that there are no appealable orders of the Commissioner, since S.4 (1) has in terms prohibited all appeals. As the words orders of are not repeated before the words a Municipal authority, you cannot read word order as meaning orders declared final by this Act when applied to the orders of a Commissioner and as meaning "orders subject to appeal under a Municipal Law" in relation to the orders of a Municipal Authority. Besides, it would be some what anomalous that S. 3 should provide the forum for appeals which lay under the Municipal Act and in regard to the same matter, i.e., those in regard to which a Municipal appeal would lie, make a parallel provision for a revision by the State Government without clearer words. We do not consider it necessary to examine this matter further or to examine the other anomalies which this construction might involve, because we are in this case concerned with a non-appealable order of a Municipal authority. So far as they are concerned, such orders would be in exactly the same situation as regards their finality as the orders of a Commissioner, which by reason of the positive provisions of S. 3 (3) and S. 4 (1) are expressly declared final by the Act. It appears to us that the more reasonable construction is to construe the words orders of a Municipal authority as including final orders not subject to a Municipal appeal which would fall into the same category as appellate orders of a Commissioner which are declared final by the Act.16. It is, no doubt, true that so to construe these words could empower a State Government to interfere in Municipal affairs and this on an extensive scale and enable them to pass orders in revision, on matters which under the relevant Municipal law were final and not subject to any appeal. That is an aspect which appealed greatly to the learned Judges of the High Court and as we have pointed out earlier, forms the main reasoning on which they have arrived at the construction of the proviso. Though we are not unmindful of the consequences and implications of this construction, we consider that it would not be proper to take these factors into consideration where the words of the statute are clear and what we have stated earlier should suffice to show that, in our opinion the opposite construction is not reasonably open without doing violence to the language of the enactment either by omitting the words "or other Municipal authorities", altogether or by rewriting the section so as to achieve the desired result. We do not conceive this to be the function of a Court of construction but that it must be left to other organs of Government. We, therefore, consider that the learned Judges of the High Court were in error in holding that the State Government had no power to entertain the revision against the order of the President of the Municipal Council and to quash it on that ground.17. As already indicatd in the Writ Petition under Art. 226 filed by the respondent to the High Court she based her attack on the validity of the order of the State Government not merely on the ground that it was beyond their revisional jurisdiction, but on various other grounds. The learned Judges of the High Court having reached a conclusion in her favour on this ground, observed in the course of their judgment:"The order of the Government is without jurisdiction and must be quashed on this ground alone. It is not necessary to go into the other grounds raised in this petition."The learned Counsel for the respondent drew our attention to this passage and submitted that we should allow the appeal on our construction of the proviso to S. 4 (1), we should remand the case to the High Court for considering the other objections that were raised. Though the learned Counsel for the appellant submitted that we might ourselves deal with the other points, we do not accede to this request. In our opinion, the case has to be sent back to the High Court for all the other objections being considered on their merits as may arise on the pleadings and in law. We are not to be understood as having expressed any opinion as to whether any such point arises on their merits.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 1

Explanation:
1[ds]It is obvious that this is not the function of the proviso to S. 4 (1) of the Act, for the operative words in the main part of S. 4(1) prohibit all appeals from the appellate orders of the Commissioner. The primary purpose of the proviso now under consideration is, it is apparent, to provide a substitute or an alternative remedy to that which is prohibited by the main part of S. 4(1). There is, therefore, no question as to the proviso carving out any portion out of the area covered by the main part and leaving the other part unaffected. What we have stated earlier should suffice to establish that the proviso now before us is really not a proviso in the accepted sense but an independent legislative provision by which to a remedy which is prohibited by the main part of the section, an alternative is provided. It is, further obvious to us that the proviso is not co-extensive with but covers a field wider than the main part of S.4 (1). If its function were only to provide a remedy alternative to a further appeal from the orders of the Commissioner and no more and that is the contention of the learned Counsel for the respondent, the words of any order passed by...... a Municipal authority should have no place in it. If this submission has to be accepted, the proviso would have to be read deleting the words "or other Municipal authority". As already pointed out, this rejection cannot be done on any accepted principle of statutory construction, for the words have meaning and effect can be given to them without the same conflicting with tiny other operative provision of theargument though plausible does not appear to us to be sound or maintainable on any proper construction of the words employed. If the learned Counsel is right, the clause would read "The Government may.......... call for any record of any case........... of any appealable order passed by a Commissioner or by a Municipal authority and may pass such orders..........." This would show how impossible it is to read the word order as confined to appealable orders which is what the learned Counsel suggests as the proper construction of the proviso, for it would at once be seen that there are no appealable orders of the Commissioner, since S.4 (1) has in terms prohibited all appeals. As the words orders of are not repeated before the words a Municipal authority, you cannot read word order as meaning orders declared final by this Act when applied to the orders of a Commissioner and as meaning "orders subject to appeal under a Municipal Law" in relation to the orders of a Municipal Authority. Besides, it would be some what anomalous that S. 3 should provide the forum for appeals which lay under the Municipal Act and in regard to the same matter, i.e., those in regard to which a Municipal appeal would lie, make a parallel provision for a revision by the State Government without clearer words. We do not consider it necessary to examine this matter further or to examine the other anomalies which this construction might involve, because we are in this case concerned with a non-appealable order of a Municipal authority. So far as they are concerned, such orders would be in exactly the same situation as regards their finality as the orders of a Commissioner, which by reason of the positive provisions of S. 3 (3) and S. 4 (1) are expressly declared final by the Act. It appears to us that the more reasonable construction is to construe the words orders of a Municipal authority as including final orders not subject to a Municipal appeal which would fall into the same category as appellate orders of a Commissioner which are declared final by the Act.16. It is, no doubt, true that so to construe these words could empower a State Government to interfere in Municipal affairs and this on an extensive scale and enable them to pass orders in revision, on matters which under the relevant Municipal law were final and not subject to any appeal. That is an aspect which appealed greatly to the learned Judges of the High Court and as we have pointed out earlier, forms the main reasoning on which they have arrived at the construction of the proviso. Though we are not unmindful of the consequences and implications of this construction, we consider that it would not be proper to take these factors into consideration where the words of the statute are clear and what we have stated earlier should suffice to show that, in our opinion the opposite construction is not reasonably open without doing violence to the language of the enactment either by omitting the words "or other Municipal authorities", altogether or by rewriting the section so as to achieve the desired result. We do not conceive this to be the function of a Court of construction but that it must be left to other organs of Government. We, therefore, consider that the learned Judges of the High Court were in error in holding that the State Government had no power to entertain the revision against the order of the President of the Municipal Council and to quash it on thatour opinion, the case has to be sent back to the High Court for all the other objections being considered on their merits as may arise on the pleadings and in law. We are not to be understood as having expressed any opinion as to whether any such point arises on their merits.With due respect to the learned Judges we do not find it possible to agree that it is permissible to omit or delete words from the operative part of an enactment, which have meaning and significance in their normal connotation merely on the ground that according to the view of the Court it is inconsistent with the spirit underlying the enactment. Unless the words are unmeaning or absurd, it would not be in accord with any sound principle of construction to refuse to give effect to the provisions of a statute on the very elusive ground that to give them their ordinary meaning leads to consequences which are not in accord with the notions of propriety or justice entertained by the Court. No doubt, if there are other provisions in the statute which conflict with them, the Court may prefer the one and reject the other on the ground of repugnance. Surely, that is not the position here. Again, when the words in the statute are reasonably capable of more than one interpretation, the object and purpose of the statute, a general conspectus of its provisions and the context in which they occur might induce a Court to adopt a more liberal or a more strict view of the provisions, as the case may be, as being more consonant with the underlying purpose. But we do not consider it possible to reject words used in an enactment merey for the reason that they do not accord with the context in which they occur, or with the purpose of the legislation as gathered from the preamble or long title. The preamble may, no doubt, be used to solve any ambiguity or to fix the meaning of words which may have more than one meaning, but it can, however, not be used to eliminate as redundant or unintended, the operative provisions of a statute. Besides, if one strictly applied this rule of interpretation that the Act did not intend to make provision for nothing except a forum for appeals the whole of the proviso even where it provided for revisions against the orders of a Commissioner, must be rejected as travelling beyond the long title and the preamble, for in neither of them is reference made to revisions. We do not, therefore, consider that in the case of the Act under consideration, it would be possible to reject the words "or a municipal authority" by reference to the preamble and the long title.