SURENDRA NATH GUPTA Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MUNICIPAL Committee, Hissar, was superseded by the Governor Haryana through an order appearing in the Haryana Government Gazette Extraordinary notification dated 22nd July, 1968. This order was passed under Section 238 of the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911 (hereinafter called the Act ). It was stated therein that until the new Committee was constituted, General Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner would function as the Administrator. The reasons for the impugned order as are to be found in the notification are stated hereunder: " (1) The arrears of house tax are quite heavy (Rs. 595868. 10) and part of them date back to the year 1958-59. The Municipal Committee has not been able to recover these old arrears, which have been mounting up thereby failing to discharge the duties in this respect. (2) The amount of arrears on account of missing transit passes has risen by about Rs. 3,000/since last inspection. The Committee has failed to plug loop holes in this behalf and thus failed to recover the amount. (3) The arrears on account of house rent amounted to Rs. 28,207/- at the end of March, 1968, which amount was too heavy. The Municipal Committee has failed to discharge its duties in making proper recovery in respect of house rents. (4) There are as many as 1,133 pending cases of unauthorised constructions. The Committee has been unable to get these unauthorised constructions demolished or to take necessary action against the defaulters. (5) The number of encroachment cases pending is very large viz. 533. Some of these cases have been pending since the year 1954-55. The Deputy Commissioner had issued instructions that overhanging structures should be compounded but these instructions have also not been compiled with by the Committee. The Committee has, therefore, failed to discharge its functions in this respect. "

(2.) BEFORE the Committee was superseeded, the State Government served a show-cause notice with a statement of allegations, on the President of the Municipal Committee, somewhere in June, 1968, calling upon the Committee to submit an explanation within fifteen days from receipt of the communication. A copy of the statement of allegations is appended as Annexure 'e' with the writ petition. There were in all six charges, last of them being of favouritism but the same does not find mention in the impugned notification whereas the remaining five have been specifically stated as constituting the basis of the order of supersession.

(3.) IT is necessary at this stage to give a few details of the charges for the proper disposal of the writ petition. Charge No. (1) relates to arrears of house tax covering a period commencing from 1958-59 to 1967-68 and the total amount is shown as Rs. 5,95,868. 10. The figures giving the amount of arrears, collections made in respective financial years, remissions allowed from time to time and the balance due have been stated in the charge. The petitioners along with 11 others were elected as members of the Municipal Committee on 14th November, 1964. The relevant period in the matter of accumulating arrears and default of the Committee in recovering the same covered three financial years, namely, 1965-66, 1966-67 and 1967-68. The second charge refers to the arrears of Rs. 3,000/- said to have risen on account of missing transit passes since the last inspection which took place on 1st January, 1967. In other words, from January, 1967, up to June, 1968, Rupees 3,000/- were the arrears under this head. Rents to the tune of Rs. 28,207/were due to the Committee at the end of March, 11968, and this formed the subject-matter of the third charge. This amount of arrears was considered by the State Government to be quite heavy. Unauthorised constructions on municipal land constituted the fourth charge and the gravamen of the charge was that as many as 1133 cases of unauthorised construction were pending with the Committee whereas out of them, the Committee had demolished such constructions only in two cases and compounded 107 of them but the composition fee was deposited in regard to 9 such cases only. The break-up of the pending case was that 1106 were pending on 1st January, 1967, and to that were added 136 cases detected up to 31st December, 1967, making a total of 1242, out of which 109 were disposed of during this period, that is, from 1st January, 1967, to 31st December, 1967, the balance of pending cases on the date of annual inspection on 1st January, 1967, thus was 1133. This total relates to the entire period from 1954-55 upto 1966-67. The number of encroachment cases was also considered to be quite large, worked at a figure of 533, some out of which were pending since 1954-55. This included encroachments of hanging over structures which were about 200 in number. The allegation was that the Deputy Commissioner had issued instructions that hanging over structures should not be compounded but those instructions had not been compiled with. It is not suggested that there was non-compliance because of the encroachment cases having been compounded or the hanging over structures not being demolished. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the State Government thought that the total number of encroachments covering a period of several years commencing from the year 1954-55 was quite large. The last charge bearing serial number (6) was with regard to the acts of favouritism shown by the Committee. Reference in this connection was made specifically to five cases, namely lease to Roshan Lal, encroachments by Ram Singh, Municipal Commissioner, Sita Ram brother of Ram Parshad, Vice-President, petitioner Kalu Ram father of Parshotam Das petitioner, and Smt. Chandro Devi wife of Ram Dhari Mal Municipal Commissioner.