RAMANLAL MANAKCHAND MAHESHWARI Vs. MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order governs the disposal of Miscellaneous Petition No. 274 of 1960 also.

(2.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is directed against the municipal Committee, Piparia, the Collector, Hoshangabad, and the Sub-Divisional officer, Sohagpur. The connected petition is directed against the Municipal committee, Piparia, only.

(3.) THE petitioners in these two petitions are dealers in grain and they also do the business of commission agents in the town of Piparia. 'the Municipal Committee, piparia, resolved on 15-9-1960 to close the existing market and shift it to another site with effect from 15-10-1960 (An-nexures t and II ). The Municipal Committee intimated the petitioners that they can carry on the business of selling and purchasing grain and practise as commission agents only within the limits of the new market and threatened to cancel their licenses to practise as brokers or adhtiyas if they continue to carry on business in the old market. The petitioners have challenged the resolution of the Municipal Committee as ultra vires and ineffective inasmuch as the present grain market was established under the central Provinces and Berar Agricultural Produce Market Act, 1935 (No XXIX of 1935) (hereinafter referred to as the 'act of 1935') and the Municipality is not, according to the provisions of that Act, entitled to establish any market within three miles of the existing market. It has also been pleaded that the municipality has not yet acquired the site on which the new market is proposed to be shifted and the facilities for carrying on the marketing business on the new site are not reasonable within the meaning of Section 50 of the C. P. and Berar Municipalities act, 1922, (hereinafter referred to as the 'municipalities Act' ). In addition to these pleas, Shri R. K. Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioners, in Misc. Petition No. 274 of 1960 raises an additional point that the establishment of a new market or the shifting of the old market could be done only by framing suitable byelaws and not by a resolution.