R.S. Pathak, J. - (1.) VISHWANATH Tripathi, the first Petitioner, was elected President of the Municipal Board of Gaura Barhaj in December, 1964. Mewa Lal, the second Petitioner, is a member of the Board. Upon receipt of a written notice of intention to make a motion of non -confidence on the President, the District Magistrate convened a meeting of the Board for consideration of the motion for March 27, 1966. The temporary Civil and Sessions Judge, Deoria, presided over the meeting and the motion was passed by ten votes to five. The second Petitioner was absent from the meeting.
(2.) THE Petitioners pray for certiorari quashing the proceedings of the meeting and for mandamus directing the Respondents, who include the District Magistrate, Deoria and other members of the Board, from interfering with the first Petitioner functioning as President. The only contention raised by the Petitioners is that the meeting was not validly constituted inasmuch as no notice of the meeting had been served or can be deemed to have been served upon the second Petitioner and therefore the entire proceedings of the meeting are a nullity.
(3.) SECTION 87 -A(3) lays down the duties imposed upon the District Magistrate in the matter of convening such a meeting. He is required to convene the meeting at the office of the Board on the date and at the time appointed by him which must not be earlier than thirty and not later than thirty five days from the date on which the notice of intention to make the motion of non -confidence is delivered to him. Then follows a provision of some importance to this petition. He (the District Magistrate) shall send by registered post not less than seven clear days before the date of the meeting, a notice of such meeting and of the date and time appointed therefor, to every member of the board at his place of residence and shall at the same time cause such notice to be published in such manner as he may deem fit. Thereupon every member shall be deemed to have received the notice. It is not disputed between the parties that the notice of the meeting was not actually served upon the second Petitioner. The question is whether the second Petitioner can be deemed to have received the notice by reason of the fiction enacted in the aforesaid provision. The statute declares that if the District Magistrate sends by registered post not less than seven clear days before the date of the meeting a notice of such meeting to a member of the Board at his place of residence and also cause such notice to be published in such manner as he may deem fit then such member shall be deemed to have received the notice. It is necessary in order that the fiction should operate that both steps be adopted by the District Magistrate. He must send the notice by registered post to the member at his place of residence, and at the same time cause the notice to be published in the manner he deems fit. It will not do if he adopts merely one of the two steps. The fiction operates only upon the composition of the two steps. When the Legislature devises a fiction, the result which is the creature of the legislative artifice can be brought about only if all the components necessary to its birth are in existence. If any one or more of the components are absent, the legal fiction will not operate at all. That the adoption of one or the other step will not suffice to bring the legal fiction into existence is clear from the requirement in the provision that publication of the notice is contemplated "at the same time" at the occasion when the District Magistrate sends the notice by registered post.;