BARNAGAR ELECTRIC SUPPLY AND INDUSTRIAL CO Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this case the petitioner, the Barnagar Electric Supply and Industrial Company ltd. , (hereinafter referred to as the Company,) seeks a writ of certiorari for quashing an order of the State Government under Section 4 (1) of the Indian Electricity Act, 1910, (hereinafter referred to as the Act), revoking its licence.

(2.) THE licence was granted to the Company under the Gwalior Electricity Act, samvat 1995, on 28th March, 1938, by the Government of the former Gwalior state. The licence was for a period of twenty-five years and would have in ordinary course expired on 27th March, 1963. In January 1950 the Madhya Bharat indian Electricity Act, 1910 (Adaptation Act), Samvat-2oo6 (No. 14 of 1950), came into force in Madhya Bharat. By that Act the provisions of the Indian Electricity Act were adapted and brought into force in Madhya Bharat. The repeal and saving clause of that Act inter alia made licences granted under the Gwalior Electricity Act as licences deemed to have been granted under the adapted Indian Electricity Act, 1910. In 1951 the Part B States (Laws) Act, 1951, came into force and by virtue of that enactment the Indian Electricity Act, 1910, was extended to Madhya Bharat and the adapted Act No. 14 of 1950 stood repealed. Section 6 of the Part B Sates (Laws) Act, 1951, also provided that licences granted under the repealed Act shall be deemed to have been granted under the extended Act. The effect of all these provisions is that the licence granted to the petitioner on 28th March, 1938, under the Gwalior Electricity Act, Samvat 1995, is now by fiction a licence granted under the Indian Electricity Act, 1910. Under Section 4 (1) of the Act the State government is empowered, after consulting the State Electricity Board, to revoke a licence, if in its opinion the public interest so requires, in the circumstances enumerated in Sub-clauses (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e ). Section 4 of the Act, so far as it is material here, runs as follows" 4 (1) The State Government may, if in its opinion the public interest so requires and after consulting the State Electricity Board, revoke a license, in any of the following cases, namely:

(3.) ON 30th June, 1961, the State Government issued a notice to the petitioner-Company under Section 4 (3) of the Act asking the Company to show cause within a period of three months from the date of the receipt of the notice why its licence should not be revoked under Section 4 (1 ). The grounds on which it was proposed to revoke the licence were stated in the notice thus -