V. SUDHAKARAN Vs. PALLICHAL GRAMA PANCHAYAT AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition has been referred to this Court by the learned Single Judge as per reference order dated 21/1/2016. Petitioner in the writ petition claimed to have a deemed licence for conducting quarrying operations in a property for which he was having quarrying lease. According to the petitioner, though he submitted an application for renewal of licence for conducting the quarry, the application was not disposed of within a period of thirty days as provided under Sec. 236(3) of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and therefore, he was entitled for deemed licence. However, the Panchayat after the prescribed period of thirty days issued a communication to the petitioner rejecting his application for renewal of licence. According to the petitioner, the Panchayat had no jurisdiction to reject the application for renewal on account of the fact that the renewal application is deemed to have been allowed for the usual period of renewal, in terms of Sec. 236(3) of the Act. The petitioner also relied upon judgment of this Court in Rajesh Ramachandran v/s. Corporation of Trivandrum : (2008 (3) KLT 419) wherein it is held that the benefit of deemed licence can be availed for the whole period of the application notwithstanding the subsequent refusal. The learned Single Judge did not agree with the ratio decidendi in Rajesh Ramachandran (supra) and therefore referred the matter to the Division Bench for an authoritative pronouncement. Reference is also made to another judgment of this Court in Siyad Hassan v/s. Marady Grama Panchayat ( : 2015 (1) KLT 961) wherein it was held that a deemed licence can be issued to the applicant in a physical form. In the reference order, it was observed that when a deemed licence is only a legal fiction wherein certain state of affairs is imagined to exist, the said judgment also requires to be reconsidered. The reference order therefore places doubt on two judgments of this Court, ie., Rajesh Ramachandran (supra) and Siyad Hassan (supra).

(2.) We have heard the learned senior counsel for the petitioner Sri.Bechu Kurian, learned Amicus Curiae Sri.P.A. Mohammed Shah and learned standing counsel for the Panchayat Sri.T.K. Anandakrishnan.

(3.) Before proceeding further, it will be useful to narrate the facts involved in the present writ petition.