RAJ PAL CHHABRA Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Should, pervasive legislative powers vested in the State legislature by virtue of delegated legislation under the constitutional provisions, taken to all its logical extent, be permitted to create a dent in the various Articles of the Constitution of India and its basic structure, is one of the question amongst others which arise for consideration in the present writ petition

(2.) Every other law must fall in comity to the constitutional law and must pave way for its preferential prevalence. The 74th Constitutional amendment by Act of 1992 introduced Articles 243-P and 243-ZG with a clear legislative command to bring the governance of the affairs of people by elected bodies, right at the grassroot level. The introduction of these provisions obviously resulted in amendment of some State Laws including the provisions of the Haryana Municipal Act, 1973, hereinafter referred to as the Municipal Act. The provisions of this Act, amongst others, provide for constitution of Municipal Committee, election of its members, challenge to such election and all other ancillary matters arising therefrom. Keeping in line with the basic feature of democracy, the provisions were also made for election of the President and Vice-President of the Municipal Committee and for a no confidence motion to be moved against them. Under sub-section (5) of Section 21 of the Haryana Act it was provided that if a no confidence motion is carried with the support of not less than 2/3rd of the members of the Committee, the President or the Vice-President, as the case may be shall be deemed to have vacated his office. In order to determine which of the members of the Committee has a right to vote on the motion of no confidence, reference amongst other provisions has to be made the provisions of Section 9 of the Act.

(3.) Various provisions of this Act and the Rules framed thereunder have been subjected to repeated amendments by the State Legislature even over a short span of time, more particularly Section 9 and Section 21 of the Act have been subject matter of rapid as well as radical amendments right from 1988 till very recently. Consequences and effects of frequent legislative amendments were clearly seen even in the judicial pronouncements by the Courts. Which of the members of the Committee would be entitled to vote in a confidence motion, became a subject of some considered controversy. There was definite conflict in judicial pronouncements on this question alone. It was primarily for these reasons that a Division Bench of this Court considered it appropriate to admit this writ petition for hearing by a Full Bench.