JUDGMENT - (1) A dispute between the petitioner who is a member of the Bombay Provincial Co-operative Bank, Ltd., Dhulia, and the" Society was referred to arbitration under Section 54 of the Co-operative Societies Act. As the amount involved in the dispute was very large, viz. Rs. 53,495-0-6, the petitioner wanted to appear before the arbitral tribunal through his advocate and the tribunal rejected the application of the petitioner as it was governed by Rule 36 of the rules framed under the Act. That rule is framed under Section 71, and Sub-section (1) of that section provides that the Provincial Government may, for the whole or any part of the presidency and for any society or class of societies, make rules to carry out the purposes of the Act, and Sub-section (2) provides: "In particular and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power such rules may.....," and when we turn to Sub-section (u),

"prescribe the mode of appointing an arbitrator or arbitrators and the procedure to be followed in proceedings before the Registrar or such arbitrator, or arbitrators and for fixing and levying the expenses of determining the dispute."

Now, under this sub-clause Rule 36 has been framed by the Provincial Government and (hat rule is to be following effect:

"In proceedings held under Rules 32 to 35, no party shall be represented by a legal practitioner."

And the proceedings with which we are concerned are held under those rules.

(2) Now, it is contended by Mr. Kotwal that Rule 36 is ultra vires. It is pointed out that the petitioner is considerably handicapped by having to appear before the arbitrators with-out the assistance of a lawyer and that the rule inasmuch as it totally prohibits representation of a party by a legal practitioner is unreasonable and therefore should be held 10 be bad by this Court. Now, the power which Courts have to consider the validity of statutory rules is very limited power. If a rule is within the ambit of the statute, then it cannot be successfully challenged on the ground that it is an unreasonable rule. As a matter of fact, Courts in India until our Constitution was enacted had no power at all to consider the reasonableness of any legislation. Reasonableness was a matter of policy which was left to the Legislature and a law could only be challenged on the ground of its being ultra vires of the Legislature; but if it was within the competence of the Legislature, the law could not further be challenged on the ground that it was not a reasonable law. Similarly statutory rules formed part of the statute, and if they were within the scope of the statute and permitted by the statute to be framed, then they could not be challenged on the ground of unreasonableness.

Mr. Kotwal has drawn our attention to various decisions of the English Courts where by-laws have been held to be bad on the ground that they were unreasonable. Now, there is a clear distinction between statutory rules and by-laws. By-laws are usually framed by corporations under their inherent powers in order to carry out the purposes of the corporation or they are framed by public authorities set up by Parliament, and as it is left to the corporations or the public authorities to frame these by-laws and carry out their purposes, the Courts have retained certain amount of control over the by-laws by considering their reasonableness. But statutory rules stand on an entirely different footing. Parliament or Legislature, instead of incorporating the rules into the statute itself, ordinarily authorises Government to carry out the details of the policy laid down by the Legislature by framing the rules under the statute, and once the rules are framed, they are incorporated in the statute itself and become part of the statute, and the rules must be governed by the same principles as the statute itself. And, therefore, although a by-law may be challenged on the ground that it is unreasonable, a statutory rule cannot be so challenged.

It is not suggested

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