NEGI BALBAHADUR SINGH Vs. LT GOVERNOR HIMACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed by Negi Balbahadur Singh against the Lieutenant Governor, Himachal Pradesh.

(2.) By a notification dated 21st July 1958, the respondent in the exercise of powers conferred by Section 4 sub-section (2) of the Punjab Small Towns Act, 1921, as applied to Himachal Pradesh, nominated the petitioner as a member of the Small Town Committee Rampur. By a subsequent notification dated 17th of June 1961, the respondent removed him from the membership of the aforesaid committee and a copy of that notification was forwarded to him by the Magistrate First Class Rampur vide his endorsement No. 501/61 dated 27th of June, 1961. No opportunity was afforded to him to show cause against the proposed action. As a result of the order of removal he cannot seek election to the membership of a Small Town Committee for a period of 5 years, and his gravamen is that it was a violation of the principles of natural justice to take an action which had such drastice consequences without affording an opportunity to show cause against the proposed order, that no proper inquiry was held by the respondent and that there were no prima facie grounds justifying the order of removal. On receipt of the endorsement from the Magistrate, First Class. Rampur, the petitioner made a representation to the respondent requesting for his reinstatement but that also was rejected. He, therefore, prays for the issue of an appropriate writ quashing the order of his removal from membership of the Small Town Committee Rampur and for a declaration that notification dated 17th of June, 1961 was void and ineffective and that he continued to be a member of the Small Town Committee Rampur.

(3.) The petition has been resisted mainly upon the grounds: (a) that the activities of the petitioner qua the Small Town Committee Rampur were injurious to the interest of the Committee and he was unfit to remain a member of the Committee, (b) that under law it was not necessary to issue any notice to the petitioner to show cause as to why the order of removal be not made, (c) that it was not necessary to hold any inquiry into his conduct, (d) that the order of removal was a purely administrative one and no writ could issue to quash it, and (e) that he has been guilty of laches and that an alternate and equally beneficial remedy is available to him and no case is made out for the issue of a writ in the exercise of extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court.