The main legal principle established in the judgment is the requirement for alignment with the constitutional provisions, particularly Art. 243ZD, and the need for peoples' participation in the planning of urban areas within the district.

Ravi S.Dhavan, J.

1. This issue raises an important point on what actually should be the content of local self Government with civic functions. What is urbanisation about? Is it not a civic function with local self Government? It is local Government by the people, for the people and of the people. The attack in the present petition is on the Bihar Regional Development Authority Act, 1981 .

2. As long as 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution had not arrived, the encouragement to even debate such issues was not available. Not a single argument has been advanced to resist the proposition that the content of the development authority within the area of a municipality has to with elected representatives. If the Government is local Government in its content then why should peoples representatives be eliminated in participating in municipal Government.

3. Circumstances of the set up which has been structured in Bihar (and Uttar Pradesh) will be better understood in its back ground. The supersession of local self Government in Uttar Pradesh began at the end of the decade of 1960s. In Bihar it happened by an ordinance. In Bihar the process started in 1971. In the context of Bihar the process started in 1971. In the context of Bihar this is best noticed in the judgment of the Supreme Court in re. D.C. Wadhwa V/s. State of Bihar, AIR 1987 SC 579.

4. Within a municipality the improvement, development and expansion of towns in the State of Bihar so as to secure to their present and future inhabitants, sanitary conditions, amenity and convenience was hitherto provided by an enactment known as The Bihar Town Planning And Improvement Trust Act, 1951 . The objects to this legislation say so. This got repealed by the Bihar Regional Development Authority Act, 1981.

5. Taking both the enactments into account whether the 1951 enactment or the 1981 enactment, one aspect is conspicuous by its absence that it virtually has no content of local Government. Whether it is the Bihar Town and Planning and Improvement Trust Act, 1951 or Bihar Regional Development Authority Act, 1981 there cannot be any suggestion that the local bodies which these acts have created have any element of self Government, as part of the third tier of the Government.

6. Who will be responsible for planning of the District? The answer to this is provided by Art. 243ZD of the Constitution of India. Art. 243ZD in no uncertain terms transfers the powers of all things which are municipal, of common interest between the rural and the urban, including spatial planning, sharing of water and other physical and natural resources, the integrated development of infrastructure and environment conservation to the District Planning Committee. Who will constitute the District Planning Committee? The Constitution says that it will be such that shall be elected by and amongst the elected members (of the Panchayat at the district level and of the Municipality in the district) in proportion to the ratio between the population of the rural area and of the urban area in the district. The brackets have been provided by the Court. The content of local Government, the Constitution says in this context shall not be less than 4/5ths of the total number of the members. This is democracy. The court is not concerned on who the rest of 1/5th will be. But the 1/5th if they are to come for the third tier of the Government within the State they will be in subjugation and under local self Government. The 1/5th is a representation from amongst those who are not locally elected to represent local self Government. Thus, until a truer representation on the District Planning Committee is installed in Bihar, the non elected representatives may only be to the extent of 1/5th.

7. The Regional Development Authority of the district has to have a local content coming from the third tier of the Government. There must be a peoples participation in the planning of the urban area within the district. Article 243ZD