SUKHDEO NARAYAN Vs. MUNICIPAL COMMISSIONERS OF ARRAH MUNICIPALITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an unusual petition. Five Municipal Commissioners of the Arrah Municipality have prayed for several writs against the Municipal Commissioners, themselves, and against the Executives. By one writ they want that the Commissioners be compelled to function under opposite party 2, who, according to them, still continues to be the Chairman. By another they want opposite party 2 to be restrained from vacating his office. By yet another writ they want that opposite party 3, who has been elected a Chairman in the meeting of the Municipal Commissioners, be asked to show cause under what authority he has been functioning and why he should not be prohibited from acting as Chairman. They further want a directive from this Court to compel opposite party Nos. 5 to 36, all Municipal Commissioners, to function under opposite party 2 and to be restrained from helping opposite party 3. The last writ sought for is on opposite party 4, President of the Municipality, for quashing his rulings given on the points of order raised in two meetings of the Municipal Commissioners held on the 7th and 9-1-1956.

(2.) The facts giving rise to an interesting situation like this require a little elaboration. I call it interesting because the petitioners want opposite party 2 to be restrained from vacating his office when it is manifest that he is only too eager to continue as Chairman of the Municipality and to that effect has filed his affidavit and his submissions in detail.

(3.) Opposite party 2, Sri Rameshwar Prasad Agarwal, was elected Chairman of the Arrah Municipality on 5-8-1952, and on the same day Sri Choudhri Sharafat Hussain, opposite party 4, and Sri Raghunath Prasad, opposite party 5, were elected President and Vice-Chairman, respectively. From 1952 to March 1955 was a period which may be described as peaceful in the administration of the Arrah Municipality. Dissensions started sometime in March 1955, and it appears that the Municipality was divided in two hostile camps. Their hostility, which hampered the business of the Municipality, attracted the attention of the Government who, by its letter dated 10-6-1955, asked the Executives of the Municipality to take immediate steps to improve its administration and to relieve the District Magistrate from his present duties under Section 384, Sub-section (3), Bihar and Orissa Municipal Act. It appears that the District Magistrate was appointed, in the meantime, by the Government to authorise expenditure from the funds of the Municipality in order to avert serious injury to the public. This letter of the Government was followed by another dated 8-11-1955 as, in its opinion, the warning issued on 10-6-1955 'could bear no fruit'. In the second letter it was stressed that, on account of the differences amongst the Municipal Commissioners, the budget estimates for 1955-56 could not be passed and the differences were so deep that there was little possibility of arriving at any satisfactory solution. Accordingly, by this letter, the Government asked the Commissioners of the Municipality under Section 385, Bihar and Orissa Municipal Act, hereinafter to be referred as the Act, to show cause why their offices should not be declared to be vacant. It may be stated here that a requisition meeting was called under Section 44(1) of the Act to be held on 28-11-1955 to pass a no-confidence motion on the Chairman (opposite party 2).