( 1 ) THE appellants before us are seven hundred and eighty-four individuals and, strange it might seem, three inanimate objects. They, along with one other individual were petitioners in an application under Article 226 of the Constitution and by that application they challenged the formation of the Kharagpur Municipality by the State of West Bengal and the first tax assessment made by the Commissioners of the Municipality. As to the formation of the Municipality, it was complained that the area constituted into a municipality was not a town, that it was not a compact area and that the adjoining railway settlement had been unwarrantedly excluded. As to the tax assessment, it was complained that the assessment had not been made "by any qualified panel of assessors as provided under Section 145 of the Ben. Municipal Act". Accordingly the petitioners prayed for the issue of a writ of mandamus upon the State of West Bengal and the Joint Secretary of the State Government in the Department of Local Self-Government, directing them to forbear from giving effect to the notifications by which the constitution of the Municipality had been declared and also a writ of the