ANUGRAH NARAIN SINGH Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A generation of young citizens or may be not so young, has grown up without experiencing or participating in civic elections. Millions of School children are taught the illusion of civic rights in a subject called civics in their course books which speaks of the Parliament, the State legislatures and the civic bodies, but they do not know what the latter is. They are taught to be a citizen without experience of being one. This generation has not seen, effectively, and has yet to see what local government is, and until they experience it, local government will remain an illusion out of the text books they are taught. This is what these casts are about. There are a number of them, but the issues are common. In some petitions citizens seek a direction that civic elections be held, in others they question the right of the local bodies to impose afresh or enhance taxes on the principle that there will be 'no taxation without representation'. Then, there are petitions and arguments which have been addressed seriously that the power which permits the functioning of the local bodies to be superseded be declared as ultra vires. Thus, the presence of the then learned Advocate General, U.P. Mr. Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar.

(2.) Somewhere in the sixties a slip had occurred and it was the beginning of a paralytic stroke striking local bodies like municipalities and Corporations, when the elected representatives were either being bundled out of their offices or were facing a situation that they would not represent the local bodies for a long time to come. The frustration in not having elected representatives is the content of these petitions before this Court, Local self government for almost two decades was in state of suspended animation in this State, the inner strength to keep it going was waning, and did, the fear which the Mahatma carried and expressed himself in reference to self government was becoming a reality in this State and a few others in the nation. The Mahatma said "Self Government depends entirely upon our own inner strength, upon our ability to fight against heavy odes. Indeed self-government which does not require that continuous striving to attain it and to sustain it is not worth the name

(3.) There have been petitions pending for many years complaining that superseding local bodied with elected representatives as functionaries, is unconstitutional. The petitioners in some petitions have pleaded that there must be a return to local self-government. The petitioners had been confronted with vehemence by the State Government and particularly by the local body of this city as constituted without elected representatives that to supersede local government is constitutional and the basis to tax has been justified by law which permits this to happen. The defence of the State, in effect, is that given the occasion, the right to supersede a local body is inherent in the State and cannot be questioned. This aspect makes the Court reflect on certain fundamental issues being (a) can a local body be superseded, (b) ought it to be superseded and (c) by whom and (d) when? This necessarily will entail an examination of the legislation by which local self-government is permitted and then pondering on another question whether local self government and parliamentary democracy go hand in hand and were meant to exist as complementary to each other.