ABDUL GAFOOR Vs. MANNARKAD MUNICIPALITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, in partnership with one Abdulla, and with an intention of starting a fish trade business under the name and style 'N.G.Fish Market', identified a site having an extent of 50 cents comprised in Sy.Nos.70/1, 70/2 and 94/4 of Mannarkad-1 Village, Mannarkad Taluk, Palakkad District, along with a building bearing Door No.2/1215 of Mannarkad Municipality, and applied to the Kerala State Pollution Control Board for the necessary consent to establish a shop for trading in fish. Ext.P1 is the consent to establish that was obtained by the petitioner from the 4th respondent. It would appear that pursuant to a complaint preferred by the 5th respondent, who is a Councilor of Ward No.3 of the Municipality, apprehending pollution on account of the business proposed by the petitioner, the 4th respondent convened a meeting where the complainant as also the petitioner were heard. In the proceedings that followed, the consent to establish granted to the petitioner was seen valid and proper, but the petitioner was directed to install certain additional facilities for waste disposal such as soak pit, septic tank, bio gas plant, metal sheet wall etc., as a condition precedent for the issuance of the consent to operate the shop. Ext.P3 is the copy of the minutes of the meeting of the Kerala State Pollution Control Board on 24.01.2019. It is not in dispute that the petitioner having complied with the directions issued by the Pollution Control Board, subsequently obtained the formal consent to operate the shop (Ext.P8).

(2.) Armed with the said consent, the petitioner preferred Ext.P4 application dated 09.04.2019 before the Secretary of the Municipality, seeking a licence in terms of Section 447 of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994, read with the Kerala Municipality (Issue of licence to Dangerous and Offensive Trades & Other Trades and Factories) Rules, 2011. While there was no decision forthcoming from the Secretary of the Municipality, the petitioner was served with a communication dated 30.04.2019 from the Secretary of the Municipality, informing him of the decision dated 27.04.2019 of the Municipal Council, that the licence sought for by the petitioner could not be granted. In the Writ Petition, Ext.P5 communication and Ext.P6 decision of the Municipal Council are impugned, inter alia, on the ground that the Municipal Council has no jurisdiction to consider the application for licence preferred by the petitioner since it is the Secretary, who is the proper authority to consider the application for licence in terms of Section 447 of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994. It is further contended that the Secretary, on his part, virtually abdicated his statutory responsibility by not passing any order on the application for licence but forwarding the same to the Municipal Council with his recommendations thereon, which albeit in favour of the petitioner, were not ultimately acted upon by the Municipal Council.

(3.) In the Writ Petition, the petitioner also alleges that the hostile stand of the Municipal Council is attributable to personal and extraneous reasons inasmuch as the brothers of the Chairperson of the Mannarkad Municipality, impleaded in her personal capacity as the 7 th respondent, are also engaged in fish trading as commission agents in another fish market in a nearby locality, and it is to avoid the business competition that the Municipality has taken a stand adverse to the petitioner.