SURAJ PAL Vs. ZILA PARISHAD BANDA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution, the petitioners have impugned certain bye-laws framed by different Zila Parishads. Those bye-laws seek to regulate collection of carcass of animals, storing and flaying them for extracting hides and bones. These bye-laws provide, inter alia, that the right to collect carcass of animals, storing and utilising them in rural areas, should be disposed of by auction and that the highest bidder alone should have such right to the exclusion of all others. These bye-laws also provide that unless a person obtains a licence from the Zila Parishads he cannot carry on the aforesaid activities.

(2.) THE aforesaid bye-laws are purported to have been made under Section 239 of the U. P. Kshettra Samiti and Zila Parishads Adhiniyam, 1961, (hereinafter referred to as the Act). Sub-Section (1) of that Section empowers Zila Parishads to make bye-laws for their own purposes and for the purposes of Kshettra Samitis in respect of matters required by the Act to be governed by bye-laws and for the purpose of promoting or maintaining the health, safety and convenience of the inhabitants of the rural areas and for the furtherance of the administration of the Act in the Khand and the district. Without prejudice to the generality of the powers conferred by sub-Section (1), sub-Section (2) particularises several matters in respect of which such bye-laws can be made by Zila Parishads.

(3.) THE impugned bye-laws in the present petitions are practically the same as the bye-laws which were considered by the aforesaid Division Bench and the decision of their Lordships is binding on us. But Shri S. P. Gupta and Shri B. D. Agarwal who appeared for some of the respondents Zila Parishads, urged that the aforesaid decisions require reconsideration and that hence we should refer these petitions to a Larger Bench. THEy maintained that the aforesaid two decisions had overlooked the pronouncement of the Supreme Court in the State of Maharashtra v. H. N. Mao, AIR 1970 SC 1157.