Mehrotra, J. - (1.) THIS petition was heard by me along with other petitions as there was a common question of law involved in all these petitions that the notification by which the provisions of Section 87A and 47A of the UP Municipalities Act were applied to the Town Areas was illegal as it exceeded the permissible limit of the powers of the Governor under Section 38 of the UP Town Area Act. I have already dealt with this question in my judgment in Writ Petition No. 2164 of 1936, and in view of that decision there is no force in this contention raised by the Petitioner that the notification by which the provisions of Section 87A and 47A of the UP Municipalities Act, have been applied to the Town Areas, is ultra vires. The Petitioner in this case was elected a chairman of the Town Area Committee, Bilaspur, district Rampur. Notice to move a no -confidence motion against the present applicant signed by a number of members of the Town Area Committee was handed over to the District Magistrate who issued notices to the members indicating a date which he had fixed for the convening of the meeting for consideration of the no -confidence motion. That is the notice which has been challenged by the present Petitioner. Apart from the point which has already been referred to, two other points were raised by the Petitioner. The first point, urged by the Petitioner is that it was obligatory on the District Magistrate at least to give a substance of the no -confidence motion, notice of which had been given by the members, along, with the notice which the District Magistrate had issued to the members. Reliance was placed in this connection on a decision of this Court reported in Abdul Wajid v. State of UP : AIR 1955 All. 708. That was a case where the validity of the meeting convened for the consideration of the no -confidence motion was attacked on various grounds. One of the grounds taken was that the notice which was sent to the members did not contain a copy of the resolution of no -confidence. In that connection it was observed at page 710 of the report as follows: This rule certainly does require that the motion or proposition to be brought forward at the meeting shall be 'specified', which means that the full text thereof shall be given in the notice circulated to members. It is however, doubtful whether this rule applies to the procedure prescribed for motions of non -confidence against the President. Section 87A(1) says, that subject to the provisions of this section a motion expressing non -confidence in the President shall be made only in accordance with the procedure laid down below. The procedure to be followed for the form of notice is the procedure laid down in Section 87A (6) and above rule does not appear to apply to notices issued under Section 87A
(2.) AT the same time, however, it must be stated that it is highly desirable that the full text of the non -confidence motion is mentioned in the notice. "But even if we are of the opinion that the full text of the notice should have been sent to the members, we would have been unable to hold that, in the present case, the meeting was vitiated because of the omission to do so. It is not alleged that the text of motion was not read at the meeting as stated on behalf of the opposite party." This case, to my mind, does not lay down that the substance of the resolution must be given along with the notice and the failure to do so will amount to non -compliance with any mandatory provisions of Section 87A. It is conceded that there is nothing in Section 87A which enjoins upon the District Magistrate to give full text of the resolution along with the notice. But the argument of the Petitioner's counsel is that substance of the motion of no -confidence ought to have been given. I do not find anything in the section which makes it obligatory on the District Magistrate to give in brief the reasons on which the resolution is sought to be moved and which are embodied in the resolution itself. Accepting the argument of the Petitioner's counsel that substance has to be given it is nowhere laid down what substance means. In the present case the District Magistrate had pointed out that a notice has been given by some members to move a no -confidence motion and it cannot be said that it has not incorporated the substance of the resolution. Besides, as has been observed in the very case which I have referred to above, that the omission to give such a copy of the motion will not vitiate the entire proceedings.
(3.) THE next point urged by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner is that the notice was signed by only five members and it was wrong for the District Magistrate to have held that it was signed by six members. It is not necessary for me to enter into this controversy whether the notice was in fact signed by six members or five members. Even admitting that it was signed by only five members, in my opinion, there was full compliance with the provisions of Section 87(1) of the Municipalities Act as applied to the Town Areas. It is further contended by the Petitioner's counsel that at least the notice convening the meeting for consideration of the no -confidence motion should have been given also to the President and if the President is included among the members who were entitled to get such a notice of the resolution, the notice was signed by less than half the members. It is not necessary for me to elaborately deal with that point. I have held in the case of Nasir Husain v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors. (Civil Misc. Writ No. 2164 of 1956), Since reported in, 1957 AWR (H.C.) 335 that in the Town Area the Chairman is not a member of the committee. The legislature has specifically enacted Section 49 in the Municipalities Act, whereby the President of a Municipal Board has been made an ex -officio member of the Board. There is nothing similar in the Town Areas Act. Reliance was placed on the following passage at page 36 in the Halsbury's Laws of England, Third Edition, Volume 9;;