CHAIRMAN BUDGE BUDGE MUNICIPALITY Vs. MONGRU MIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent against a judgment and order of Bosc J. by which the-learned Judge held a certain resolution adopted by the Commissioners of the Budge Budge Municipality and a notice served on the respondents in pursuance of that resolution to be both invalid and directed their cancellation under Article 226(1) of the Constitution of India. The learned Judge also directed the Commissioners to determine according to law the applications made by the respondents for renewal of their licenses. Against that decision the Commissioners have, by their Chairman, appealed.

(2.) The appeal came up for hearing in the first instance before a Division Bench constituted of S. R. Das Gupta J. and myself when two questions of general importance were raised on behalf of the respondents. The Budge Budge Municipality exercises jurisdiction in an area which lies outside the ordinary original civil jurisdiction of this Court. It was contended that no appeal lay from a decision of a single Judge, given on an application under Article 226 of the Constitution, at any rate in a matter coming from outside the original jurisdiction. It was contended in the second place that the present appeal was barred by limitation. The judgment of Bose J. was delivered on 16-3-1951, but the appeal was not filed till 5th June following. It was contended that the period of limitation was 20 days from the date of the order under Article 151 of the Limitation Act and therefore the appeal was time-barred.

(3.) As these questions might arise in any appeal against an order made under Article 226 and a large number of such appeals were pending, the Division Bench thought that they ought to be decided finally by a larger Bench. Thereafter I constituted the present Special Bench and directed all appeals from orders made under Article 226, which were ready for hearing, to be placed before it so that alt parties might make their submissions on the two preliminary points. The appeals placed before us included both appeals arising out of matters which had taken place within the ordinary original civil jurisdiction of the Court and appeals arising out of matters which had taken place outside. We had thus the advantage of hearing the questions argued from all possible points of view and in their relation to all possible sets of circumstances, except that we had no case involving a purely criminal matter.