MUNICIPAL COUNCIL, BY ITS COMMISSIONER Vs. SYED GHULAM MUHAMMAD SAHIB, MANAGER OF HAJI MUHAMMAD GHOUSE GORI DURGA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondent who was the plaintiff in the suit out of which this appeal arises owns premises within the limits of the Trichinopoly Municipality known as the Summer House which consist of a number of tenements. The water-supply for these tenements was provided by a single pipe which was connected with the main pipe line. Under Section 306(3)(d) of the District Municipalities Act, a Municipal Council has power to make bye-laws "for the conditions on which house connexions with the Council's water-supply mains may be made; for their alteration and repair and for their being kept in proper order." The Council made a bye-law in 1933 under Section 306(3)(d) which came into force in January, 1934. It provided that "every house to which water is laid on shall be provided with only one service pipe connection and controlled by a stop-cock and ferrule," and that No house shall be supplied with water from existing or prospective service connection of any adjoining house or premises.

(2.) Under this bye-law, the Council required the respondent to substitute for his single pipe line separate connections for each of the tenements and threatened, if the connections were not made within the requisite period, to stop the supply of water to the tenements. The respondent then filed the suit, O.S. No. 107 of 1939 in the Court of the District Munsiff of Trichinopoly, out of which this appeal arises for a permanent injunction restraining the Council from cutting off the water supply to his premises or otherwise interfering with the existing pipe connections to those premises. The learned District Munsiff dismissed the suit but an appeal by the plaintiff-respondent to the Subordinate Judge of Trichinopoly was allowed and the suit decreed. Against the decree of the first appellate Court, the Municipal Council appeals.

(3.) The learned Subordinate Judge allowed the appeal for two reasons. He thought that the bye-law applied to house connections, that might be made in future and not to existing house connections, and that in any case the bye-law could not apply to house connections which already existed; and he also thought that the bye-law even if otherwise valid could not be enforced as against the respondent because it was unreasonable. It is not disputed that if the bye-law now in question was within the bye-law making powers of the Council the water supply could be cut off in the event of a refusal on the part of a house-owner to comply with the bye-law. In my opinion the contention that the Council has no power to make a bye-law under Section 306(3)(d) which shall apply to existing house connections cannot be sustained. Section 307 of the Act provides that. bye-laws with regard to the drainage of and supply of water to buildings and water closets, earth closets, privies, ash pits and cess-pools in connection with buildings and the keeping of water closets supplied with sufficient water for flushing may be made so as to affect buildings erected before the passing of the bye-laws or this Act.