MUL CHAND Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Mool Chand petitioner by means of this petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India has prayed for quashing the order of the Punjab Government dated the 22nd October, 1963 made under clause (e) of Section 14 of the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911 , whereby the seat held by the petitioner in Municipal Committee, Bawal district Gurgaon, was ordered to be vacated.

(2.) The brief facts of the case are that the petitioner was elected President of Bawal Municipal Committee in January, 1961. The Committee consists of eight members, and on 18th May, 1963 five out of the eight members of the Committee passed a resolution of no-confidence in the petitioner. According to Section 22 of the Punjab Municipal Act the required strength for passing a resolution for the removal of the President of a Municipal Committee from his office is two-third members of a Committee, and as the resolution in question had been passed by less than two-third members, it could not be legally enforced. The State Government, in the circumstances, asked the Deputy Commissioner to advise and persuade the petitioner to tender his resignation. As the petitioner did not tender his resignation, the impugned order was made. The Punjab Government in justification of the impugned order has averred as follows in paragraph '8' of the written statement :-

(3.) I have heard Mr. Ram Sarup on behalf of the petitioner and Mr. Sharma on behalf of the State of Punjab, and am of the view that the impugned order is liable to be quashed. It would appear from the above resume of facts that though the Punjab Government wanted the petitioner to discontinue functioning as the President of the Municipal Committee because of his having lost the confidence of the majority of the members, it has, on his refusal to tender resignation, removed him from the membership of the Committee by resort to clause (e) of Section 14 of the Municipal Act. The membership of a Committee is something distinct from its Presidentship, and though only a member can be elected as President, it does not follow that because a President ceases to enjoy the confidence of the members of a Committee, he should vacate his seat as a member also. It has to be borne in mind that it is not essential for a person to enjoy the confidence of other members in order to be elected or continue as a member. Further, although it may be undesirable for a person to function as President of a Municipal Committee in case he loses confidence of the majority of the members, the proper course to meet such an eventuality is to amend Section 22 of the Municipal Act by removing the condition of two third majority and reducing the required strength for passing a resolution of no confidence in the President to bare majority. But as long as the law remains as it is at present, no one, least of all the Government can attain the supposed desideratum and circumvent the legal difficulty in an oblique manner by resort to Section 14(e) of the Act. A similar question arose in Hit Abhilashi and another V/s. The State of Punjab, 1964 CurLJ 97(Pb.), Grover, J., while quashing the impugned order, observed as under :-