"if any street has been levelled, paved, metalled, flagged, channelled, sewered, drained, conserved and lighted under the provisions of section 315, the Commissioner may, and on the requisition of a majority of the owners REFERRED TO in sub-section (1) of that section shall, declare such a street to be a public street and thereupon the street shall vest in the Corporation. "

( 39 ) SUB-SECTION (1) of section 315 provides that if any private street or a part thereof is not levelled etc. to the satisfaction of the Commissioner, he may require the owner or owner of the street and the owner or owners of the lands orbuilding fronting or abutting on such street to carry out within a specified time any work which in his opinion may be necessary.- If such work is not carried out within the time specified, sub-section (2) of section 315 empowers the Commissioner, if he thinks fit to do so, to carry out the work himself and recover the expenses incurred from the owner. Section 316 provides that if any street has been levelled etc. "under the provisions of section 315", the Commissioner may declare such a street to be a public street. It also provides that the Commissioner shall so declare if a majority of the owners REFERRED TO in sub-section (1) of section 315 submit a requisition that the street should be declared as a public street. On such a declaration the section states that the street shall vest in the Corporation.

( 40 ) THE argument of the learned Attorney General is that the only provision under which private streets, like the streets in Punjabi Bagh colony, can become or can be declared to be public streets is section 316, that there is no statutory duty cast upon the Commissioner to declare such private streets as public streets unless section 316 applies, that the said section 316 does not apply unless section 315 applies in view of the words "under the provisions of section 315" in section 316, that section 315 cannot apply to the streets in Punjabi Bagh colony as they have not been levelled, paved, metalled etc. on a notice by the Commissioner under section 315 (1) requiring the owners mentioned in the sub-section to carry out such work, and admittedly the Commissioner has not got any such levelling etc. executed on his own under section 315 (2), and that consequently, the Commissioner is not under a statutory duty under section 316 to declare the streets in Punjabi Bagh colony as public streets, with the result that they are not public streets within the meaning of the Corporation Act which vest in the Corporation, and no question of any obligation to take over and maintain the four services in question arises.

( 41 ) WE are unable to accept the above argument as, in our opinion. the interpretation sought to be placed on section 315 and 316 by the learned Attorney General leads to an anomaly. It is true that section 316 provides that if any street has been levelled, paved, metalled etc. "under the provisions of section 315", the Commissioner may declare the same to be a public street, and shall declare it as a public street if a majority of the owners REFERRED TO in section 315 (1) require him to do so. It is also true that sub-section (1) of section 315 states that if any private street is not levelled etc. , the Commissioner may require the owners REFERRED TO in the sub-section to carry out such work, and sub-section (2) states that if such work is not so carried out by the owners the Commissioner may get the work executed and recover the cost of the same from the owners. But, if the argument of the learned Attorney General is accepted, private streets which are levelled etc. by the owners even without being required by the Commissioner to do so, would not fall within section 316, and the owners cannot require the commissioner to declare them as public streets. In other words, the owners of private streets and the lands and buildings fronting or abutting on such streets who level them etc. after receiving a notice from

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