B G CHAVAN Vs. STATE OF BOMBAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The councillors of the Nippani Borough Municipality were elected in June 1951 for a period of three years. That was the life of the municipality under S. 25(1) of the Bombay Municipal Boroughs Act, 1925. On 22-9-1951, opponent No. 3 was elected the president of the municipality and the resolution electing him specified the period of his office as three years. His office expired on 21-9-1954. On 22-91954, the Collector gave notice of a meeting to elect his successor and that meeting was to be held on 9-10-1954. On 8-10-1954, the Collector postponed the meeting and the petitioner and some other councillors objected to the postponement of the meeting. A representation was sent to the Collector and he was asked to hold another meeting. The Collector refused to convene a meeting. A reminder was sent to the Minister of Local Self-Government on 29-10-1954, which also met with the same fate, and ultimately the petitioner has come before us on this petition for a 'mandamus' directing the Collector to convene a meeting of the municipality for electing a president in the place of opponent No. 3.

(2.) Now, it is necessary to draw attention to certain amendments that were made in the Bombay Municipal Boroughs Act, 1925. By Act 35 of 1954 which came into force on 11-5-1954, the life of the municipality was extended from three years to four years. Under Section 25(1) the life of the municipality which was originally three, years was extensible by order of Government to a term not exceeding four years and by this amendment the life of the municipality could be extended by order of Government to five years. Therefore, the result of the amendment was that the statutory period of the municipality was four years and the Government had a right further to extend that period for a term not exceeding five years. Section 19 of the Act provided for the term of office of president and the term of office was to be not less than one year and not exceeding three years, and it was left to the municipality to determine out of these two periods what should be the life of the president. The first proviso to this section was intended to deal with cases where the election of the successor took some time and the successor was not elected before the expiry of the office of the original incumbent, and the first proviso, therefore, stated that "the term of office of such president shall be deemed to extend to and expire with the date on which his successor is elected." A second proviso was added by Act 35 of 1954 and that is the relevant proviso on which the Collector has relied in not convening the meeting and that proviso is: "Provided further that where the term of office of a municipality is extended, under this Act to a term not exceeding in the aggregate five years the president and vide-president holding offices immediately before the date with effect from which such term is extended shall continue to hold their respective offices until the date on which the term so extended expires." And the view taken by the Collector is that inasmuch as the president was holding office before Act 35 of 1954 extended the term of office of the municipality his office should continue until the extended term expires and, therefore, according to the Collector the president's term of office was automatically extended from three years to four years. This is the view that the petitioners challenge in these petitions.

(3.) Now, we may refer to another amending Act that was passed and that is Act 54 of 1954 which cam into force on 14-10-1954. In Section 19 the maximum term of the president's office was to be four years instead of three years and "not less than one year" which was the minimum term of office was qualified by "or not less than the residue of the term of office of the municipality whichever was less;" so that by reason of this amendment the president could be elected for a shorter period than one year provided that period was the residue of the term of office of the municipality, and by Section 3 these amendments were made retrospective to come into force with Act 35 of 1954. Now, a rather interesting point was raised by Mr. Purushottam on behalf of opponent No. 3 which was a matter of some considerable importance and, therefore, we gave time to Mr. Desai to consider the position on behalf of Government and Mr. Desai has now made his submissions. What was urged by Mr. Purushottam was that the amending Act 35 of 1954 was prospective in character and it could not possibly apply to the municipalities which had been elected for the statutory period of three years. According to him, the Act could only apply to municipalities which would be elected after the amending Act came into force and, therefore, according to him, no question of electing a president can arise until general elections have been held with regard to this municipality. Now, what we have to consider is what is the true effect of Act 35 of 1954 substituting four years for three years in Section 25(1). The Supreme Court in -' Shamrao v. Dist, Magistrate, Thana', has considered the effect of an amending Act and it is laid down that when a subsequent Act amends an earlier one in such a way as to incorporate itself, or a part of itself, into the earlier, then the earlier Act must thereafter be read and construed (except where that would lead to a repugnancy, inconsistency or absurdity) as if the altered words had been written into the earlier Act with pen and ink and the old words scored out so that thereafter there is no need to refer to the amending Act at all. The same principle is enunciated in Crawford on Statutory Construction (p. 110);