SOHAN LAL AHUJA Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE short but somewhat significant question raised in this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India relates to the scope of the Government's power under Section 20(1) of the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911 (for short, the Act) to approve or not to approve the election of a member as President of the Municipal Committee. The following facts which are otherwise not in dispute clearly bring out the contours of the controversy raised in this petition.

(2.) THE Petitioner was elected as a member of the Municipal Committee, Abohar - -a Class 1 Committee - -in the year 1979. Later on August 7, 1979, he was unanimously elected as President of the Committee. Vide notification dated June 10, 1983, he was removed from the office of the President and membership of the Committee with a further disqualification for five years from contesting the election to the same. One of the charges found established against him was that he had leased out a piece of land measuring 40' Ã - 200' for a period of ninety -nine years to the Bharatiya Janta Party to which party he admittedly belonged and this amounted to misuse of power on his part even though the matter had later been placed before the Committee and had been approved by it. The Petitioner impugned the above noted notification in Civil Writ Petition No. 2853 of 1983 and the Division Bench while partly allowing the same on December 19, 1983 concluded the matter thus:

(3.) HAVING heard the learned Counsel for the parties at some length we find that the petition must fail. A bare reading of the impugned order clearly indicates that the election of the Petitioner as President of the Committee has not been approved on account of his past misconduct or misuse of his powers as President of the Municipal Committee to which a reference has already been made in the earlier part of this judgment. In the light of this the contention of Petitioner's counsel that the impugned order does not contain any reason or does not satisfy the requirements of the undertaking given by the State Government on February 13, 1984, is obviously devoid of any substance. The learned Counsel appears to be equally wrong in submitting that the solitary reason for the passing of the impugned order is that the Petitioner had earlier been removed from that office. The actual reason for this non -approval as disclosed in the impugned order itself is the 'abuse of power' and not the factum of removal from that office alone. Mr. Sandhu, learned State counsel has produced before us the relevant record which clearly goes to show that while taking the decision noted above, the State Government was fully aware of and examined the past performance and misconduct of the Petitioner as a President of the Municipal Committee and it was after making a detailed reference to the entire case history that the State Government passed the impugned order. By now it is well settled that in matters like this, even though the order in question is in the nature of a quasi judicial order, yet the State Government is not required to disclose anything more than the 'outlines of the process of reasoning' for recording its conclusion and need not burden the order with a detailed and exhaustive discussion. [See Shri Sohan Lal Verma v. State of Punjab and Ors. C.W. 5417 of 1981, decided on 4th June, 1982]. The question that, however, needs to be considered and has been agitated with some amount of vehemence by the Petitioner's counsel is as to whether the earlier removal of the Petitioner from the office of the President of the Municipal Committee on account of the abuse of power as President constitutes a valid ground or good enough a reason to not to approve his re -election as the President of that Committee. To answer this question, a reference to the phraseology of Section 20(1) of the Act is apparently necessary and the same is reproduced as follows: