BIPINCHANDRA PARSHOTTAMDAS PATEL VAKIL Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I have had the privilege of perusing the judgment proposed by my learned brother S. B. Sinha, J. However, with respect, I express my inability to concur with the same and I propose to deliver a separate judgment in the following terms.

(2.) As facts and provisions of the relevant law have been set out in the judgment of my learned brother S. B. Sinha, J. I do not propose to reiterate them. The petition in hand calls for interpretation of Section 40 of the Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963 (for short the Act).

(3.) Section 40(1) is disjunctive in nature. First part of this sub-section says that a President or Vice-President of a municipality can be suspended if any criminal proceeding has been instituted against him/her in respect of any offence alleged to have been committed under the Prevention of Corruption Act or the Bombay Prohibition Act or while acting or purporting to act in discharge of his/her duties under the Act. Whereas the second part deals with the suspension of a President or Vice-President who has been detained in a prison during trial under the provisions of any law. The present petition falls under the second part. Here the appellant was suspended from the Presidents office of Anand Municipality owing to his detention in judicial custody for alleged offences under Sections 307, 143, 147, 148 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 25 (c) of the Arms Act and under Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act. To the appellant, his suspension is bad in law since his detention was not during trial as contemplated in Section 40(1) of the Act. It is also his case that the words during trial should be given a strict meaning so as to cover detention only after commencement of trial of a case as envisaged in the Code of Criminal Procedure.