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

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S. 320 of the Act the Hyderabad Municipal and Town Committees Act, 1951 (XXVII of 1951) and other connected Acts were repealed. As a transitory measure, under the same section any Committee constituted under the enactment so repealed was deemed to have been constituted under the Act and the members of the said Committee were to continue to hold office till the first meeting of the Committee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.

Reasoning: 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.