GANGADAS Vs. MUNICIPAL COUNCIL, BHOPAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is directed against certain bye -laws of the Municipal Council, Bhopal, which were published in the Madhya Pradesh Rajpatra dated 22nd June 1962.

(2.) BEFORE the Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1961, came into force, the Municipal Board, Bhopal, gave notice of its intention to make, under sections 302, 308 and 309 of the Bhopal Stale Municipalities Act, 1955 certain bye -laws for the purpose of obliging the bus owners to park their buses only on the Municipal Bus Stand as specified and requiring them to pay a fee for such use of the Bus Stand These proposals were published in the Madhya Pradesh Rajpatra dated 14 April 1961. Suggestions and objections were also required to be made within fifteen days. On 15 July 1961 the Bye -Law Committee of the Board considered the objections receive against the proposals, which were finally approved by the Board by its resolution dated 24 July 1961. Thereupon, a copy of the resolution was submitted to the State Government for confirmation as required under section 311 (2) of the Bhopal Act. It transpired that the State Government took no action in the matter until after that Act was repealed by the Madhya Pradesh Act of 1961. After the commencement of that Act, they "in exercise of the powers conferred by sub section (3) of section 357 of the Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1961 (37 of 1961)" confirmed, with some modifications, the bye -laws made by the Municipal Council, Bhopal, "under sub -clauses (f) and (m) of clause (7) of section 358 read with item (ii) of section 349 and sub -section (5) of section 357 of the said Act". These are the impugned bye -laws, which were published in the Madhya Pradesh Rajpatra dated 22 June 1962. Following this, the Municipal Council has been recovering from 27 June 1962 the fee prescribed by these bye -laws from bus -owners, including the petitioner.

(3.) SUB -section (4) of section 357 of the 1961 Act reads: