RAJENDRA KUMAR Vs. PRESIDENT, GRAM PANCHAYAT, HARPALPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution has been filed by the petitioners against the President of the Gram Panchayat, Harpalpur, Director of Panchayats, Indore, and the State of Madhya Pradesh, to challenge the validity of byelaws framed by the Gram Panchayat of Harpalpur on 13 -5 -1958 (Annexure 3) for regulating the grain market at Harpalpur under Section 112 of the Vindhya Pradesh Gram Panchayat Ordinance, 1949 (No. XXIV of 1949) hereinafter referred to as the Ordinance.

(2.) PETITIONER No. 1 represents the shopkeepers and businessmen dealing in the purchase and sale of grain at Harpalpur. He is also a commission agent (Kachcha Adatiya) in that village. Petitioner No. 2 represents the cultivators of the village who bring their grain for sale in the market at Harpalpur. The byelaws are impugned on the ground that they are in excess of the powers conferred on the Gram Panchayat under the Ordinance. They are also challenged as unconstitutional on the ground that some of them are discriminatory against certain classes of sellers of grain and some of them impose unreasonable restrictions on the sellers to sell their grain in the market or in the village of Harpalpur.

(3.) THE first question which arises in this case is whether the Gram Panchayat has power to frame byelaws under Section 112 of the Ordinance. Reliance in placed by Shri H. L. Khaskalam, Additional Government Advocate, for the State on item (B). Under that item, the Gram Panchayat may frame byelaw's "to prohibit or regulate the use of public streets or other public places by shop -keepers or other individuals or collection of market tolls on public streets". I do not find anything in this item to enable the Gram Panchayat to regulate the working of markets. It is clear that this provision is intended only to regulate the use of public places, and it is difficult to stretch that expression to cover the several restrictions as are contained in the byelaws, e. g., that the seller must sell the goods by auction alone, that he cannot negotiate with any private purchaser outside the market to purchase his goods, that the weighing of the goods must be done only by licenced weighmen, and that certain charges for weighing should be paid. Such restrictions have nothing to do with the use of public land for marketing purposes.