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1957 Supreme(Raj) 45

Rajasthan High Court
Wanchoo C.J. & Modi, J.
Milakhraj - Appellant
Versus
Jagdish Chandra - Respondents
D.B. Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 59 of 1956
Decided On : March 19, 1957

Advocates Appeared:
M.M. Vyas, for petitioner; Sumerchand Bhandari, for non-petitioner No. 14; L.N. Chhangani, Government Advocate

Headnote:(a) Municipalities—Rajasthan Town Municipal Boards (Validating) Act, 1956, sec. 1—Defect and irregularities etc. validated —Act not hit by Art. 20 of Constitu-tion as the Act in itself does not make penal provisions of Town Municipalities Act, retrospectively cognizable—In case any prosecution started Art. 20 will come to rescue.(b) Municipalities— Rajasthan Town Municipalities Act. sec. 10—Wards fixed by Government-Subsequent letter of instruction to Collectors to observe certain principles in conducting elections does not Invalidate wardwise elections according to previous Government Notification)(c) Municipalities—Rajasthan Town Municipalities Rule, R. 14—Irregularities—High Court will not entertain writ petition—Party aggrieved to file election petition before tribunal.

       

Wanchoo, C.J.—This is an application under Art. 226 of the Constitution by Milakhraj for a writ of quo warranto in connection with the election of the Municipal Board, Karanpur.

2. The applicant is a resident of Karanpur and is a voter. The applicants contention is that the election to the Municipal Board of Karanpur held in 1955 and in April, 1956, was illegal for the following reasons:

(1) The limits of the Karanpur Municipality were denned by the former Bikaner Government by notification in 1930. In September 1954, however, the Government of Rajasthan decided to alter the limits, an i published a notification of its intention to do so, but no steps were taken, as required by sec. 7 of the Rajasthan Town Municipalities Act (No. XXIII of 1951) to cause a copy of the notification to be posted in conspicuous places in the area affected. Consequently it was urged that the subsequent notification of December, 1954, altering the limits was not valid.

(2) The election was held ward-wise, but as this was against the policy of the Government, which was later conveyed to the Collectors, the whole election was invalid as the whole area of the municipal limits of Karanpur should have been treated as one ward returning multiple members.

(3) The notice given lor conducting the election, which was to be held on the 16th April, 1956, was against the provisions of Rule 14 of the Rajasthan Town Municipalities Election Rules, and, therefore, the election, which was held on the 26th April, 1956, for ward No. 3 was, in any case, invalid.

3. The application has been oppose 1 on behalf of the opposite parties, and the nature of their opposition would appear from what we shall say with reference to the three points raised on behalf of the applicant.

4. So far as the question of the operation of the limits of the municipality is concerned, the opposite parties rely on the Rajasthan Municipal Boards Validatung Act (No. 37) of 1956. The relevant portion of sec. 2 of this Act is as follows—

"(1) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any enactment law or rule or in any judgment, decree or order of any Court—

(a) all municipal hoards constituted before end functioning as such at the commencement of this Act shall be deemed always to have been properly constituted and to have had legal existence since the date of their constitution.

(b) in cases where the limits of their jurisdiction have been defined, the limits of the jurisdiction of each such board shall always be deemed, bom the date of such definition, to have been the limits as so d fined irrespective of whether or not a formal declaration in respspect of such definition has been made.

(c) in cases where such limits have not been defined, the 1imits of jurisdiction of each such board shall always be deemed from the date of its constitution till the date of any such such subsequent definition, to have been the some as the recorded limits of the town after which the municipality is named or, as the case may be, for which such board was constituted.

(d) ............

(e) .............

Explanation—The expression "recorded limits of a town" means the limits of that town as recorded in revenue records.

(2) No such Act, rule, bye-law or other action shall be liable to be called in que ton nor the propriety or otherwise of the constitution of any municipal board or of the definition of its limits of jurisdiction as stated in subsec. (1) shall be challenged in any court on the ground of any error, omission or defect of form, procedure or publication."

5. The intention of this Act is to validate the constitution of all boards which might have been invalid on account of any law or rule or any judgment decree or order of any court, and to provide limits of the jurisdiction of the board where there was some defect in the declaration or where there was no declaration at all with respects to the limits. Further, sub-sec. (2) provides that the definition of the limits of jurisdiction of a board shall not be called







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