Meaning of expression judicial or quasi-judicial order.

The petitioner has had a rice mill for over 20 years in Kottagudi village, Tiruvadanai Taluk, Ramanathapuram District. After the introduction of the scheme of licensing rice mills under the Madras Act (XXIX of 1949), the petitioner obtained the requisite licence. The licensing is now regulated by the Madras Rice Mills Licensing Order, 1955.

On 1st August, 1955, the third respondent Balakrishnan Chettiar applied to the Collector for a license to work a rice mill of his in Kottagudi Village. It was common ground that the site selected by him for his mill was only about 40 feet away from the petitioner’s mill. The petitioner lodged his objection to the grant of the license sought by the third respondent. On 9th January, 1955, the Collector rejected the application that had been preferred by the third respondent.

On 3rd January, 1956, the third respondent preferred what purported to be an appeal to the Government against the order of the Collector, dated 9th November, 1955, refusing the license for which the third respondent had applied. That petition was forwarded by the Government to the Commissioner of Civil Supplies on 19th January, 1956. The petitioner intervened again and lodged his objections to the grant of a license on 31st January, 1956. The Commissioner submitted his report to the Government. Again the petitioner intervened and lodged his objections with the Government. By its order, dated 23rd April, 1956, the Government treating the objections preferred by the petitioner to the grant of a license to the third respondent as “petitions” preferred by the petitioner, rejected them. Thus in effect, the petitioners objections were overruled. The Government directed the issue of a license to the third respondent and the Collector issued that license to the third respondent on 3rd May. 1956.

The petitioner applied under Article 226 of the Constitution. The relief originally asked for was the issue of a writ of prohibition to restrain the Collector from granting a license to the third respondent. The application itself was preferred on 7th May, 1956, even before which date, it should be remembered, the Collector acting under the orders of the Government, granted a license to the third respondent. In C.M.P. No. 430 of 1957 the petitioner asked for and obtained permission to amend the petition, to ask for the issue of a writ of certiorari to set aside both the proceedings of the Government and the issue of the license of the third respondent.

In paragraph 2 of the affidavit the petitioner filed in C.M.P. No. 430 of 1957 he averred:

"I understand, subsequent to the filing of the above Writ Petition No. 552 of 1956 that the second respondent had issued the license to the third respondent as directed by the Government two or three days prior to the filing of the said Writ Petition No. 552 of 1956. This fact was known to us only from the counter-affidavit filed by the third respondent in December, 1956."

One of the contentions of the third respondent was that this allegation could not be true. The petitioner’s mill was admittedly close to the third respondent’s mill, and the petitioner could not have been in ignorance of the fact, that the third respondent, who had commenced the construction of the mill long before he applied for the license worked that mill from May, 1956, onwards on the basis of the license issued to him by the Collector on 3rd May, 1956.

The Collector rejected the application of the third respondent on 9th November, 1955. The third respondent preferred an appeal to the Government on 3rd January, 1956. On 23rd April, 1956, the Government directed the issue of a license to the third respondent. That license was granted on 3rd May, 1956. I have set out these dates again to explain the basis of the objection of the petitioner to he validity of the order of the Government and the subsequent issue of the license to the third respondent. The contention of the petitioner was that, as the Madras Rice Mills Licensing Order s