NOOHUKANNU ROWTHER Vs. MUNICIPALITY OF CHANGANACHERRY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts, that have led to this petition, may be briefly stated. The petitioner had asked the respondent Municipality for a licence under S.283 of the Travancore District Municipalities Act, XXIII of 1116. The petitioner sells meat, and the section requires butchers, fish-mongers or poulterers, to carry their trade in conformity with the licence from the Municipal Executive authority. S.283 (2) confers on the above said authority the discretion to refuse such licence or to grant it, subject to such restrictions as to the supervision and inspection, as it thinks fit. The licence, if granted, would expire at the end of the year, in which it had been granted, unless, for special reasons, the Executive authority should direct its earlier expiration. The Travancore District Municipalities Act hereinafter called as the Act, authorises Rules being framed, and such Rules have been framed as well as published in the State Gazette of January 27, 1959. These Bye laws require all persons intending to conduct a butcher shop, to apply to the Executive Authority for a licence in the prescribed form, with a licence fee of Rs. 50/- and further directs the meat offered for sale to be of the animal slaughtered in the public slaughter house, to be wholesome, and devoid of materials unfit for consumption. The next requirement under the Bye law, is about the stamped portion being preserved until all the meat is sold out. The Bye law further authorises seizure and destruction by the Health authorities, should the meat be unwholesome, and the stall-holder will have no claim for compensation. There are other requirements intended to preserve meat being fit for human consumption and free from threatened contamination. There appears to have been earlier several proceedings between the petitioner and the Changanacherry Municipality, and one is still sub-judice. We need not give details of such proceedings, though the petitioner complains, that because of the earlier litigations, the licence has been refused for this petition succeeds on a shorter ground. The petitioner had applied for a licence under S.283 of the Act for selling meat in room No. 43 in Ward No. 22, of the Changanacherry Municipality, and the application was dated on March 4, 1959. It was rejected on March 25, 1959, the rejection being by the Commissioner on the report of the Health Officer, which has been produced as Ext. B1 in the ease. It is a long document, and the argument on behalf of the petitioner is that, as some of the grounds contained there are irrelevant, the refusal to grant becomes vitiated. In these circumstances, we would quote it in extenso.

(2.) The writ petitioners learned Advocate has taken lour grounds for setting aside the order refusing the licence. These are that:

(3.) We feel no necessity of deciding the constitutional issues for it is a well settled rule of practice not to decide constitutional questions unless these decisions be essential for the proper disposal of the particular litigation. It follows that, should any of the other grounds be sufficient for allowing the writ petition, the constitutional issues must wait adjudication in some other appropriate proceedings. Nor do we think the objection of the fee being charged without any adequate return for it, has any substance, for the Municipality has, in its reply, denied the allegation of not doing some service in consideration of charging the fee, and their reply appears to be corroborated by the petitioner having deposited the necessary fee when applying for the licence. Nor do we think that a party should be allowed in a writ proceeding to take inconsistent position and repudiate what he has, by his own voluntary conduct, shown to be correct. The adjudication on the constitutionality of the demand for the fee should, therefore, be also postponed to another proceeding.