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Judgment
Ramachandra Iyer, C.J.—The appellant who owns a rice mill in the hamlet of Chittar Kasarimangalam Village, Bhzvani Taluk, Coimbatore
District opposed the grant of a permit to establish and run a rice mill at the neighbouring village of Kurichi. The Commissioner of Civil Supplies to
whom the Central Government had delegated its powers of granting permits under S. 19 of the Rice Milling Industry (Regulation) Act, 1958,
overruling the objection granted the permit to the second respondent. The validity of his order was challenged under Art. 226 of the Constitution
before Veeraswami, J. The learned Judge declined to entertain the writ, petition on the short ground that the appellant could not be deemed to be a
person aggrieved so as to entitle him to approach this Court for the issue of a writ. The conclusion reached by the learned Judge can, in our
opinion be supported on the merits of the case as well. The principal contention advanced against the validity of the grant of the permit to the
second respondent was that the Commissioner of Civil Supplies had no authority to grant it. To appreciate the contention it is necessary to set out
the relevant provisions of the Act. That Act came into force on 22nd April, 1959. S. 5 which provides for the grant of permits in respect of new
rice mills inter alia, says :
Any person or authority may make an application to the Central Government for the grant of a permit for the establishment of new rice mill; .....
Rest of the section deals with the procedure to be followed. S. 6 relates to the grant of licence which an owner should obtain to work the mill.
Such licence is to be renewed year after year. S. 19 provides that the Central Government may by a notified order direct that any power
exercisable by it under the Act, shall in relation to such matters as may be specified, for example, the power specified in section for the grant of a
permit be exercisable (a) by such officer or authority subordinate to the Central Government, or (b) such State Government or such officer or
authority subordinate to a State Government as may be specified in the direction.
In exercise of the power vested in it the Central Government by its notification dated 22nd April, 1959 directed that the power of granting
permits for the establishment of a new rice mill can be exercised by the State Government. More than two years later on 3rd July, 1961, the
Central Government directed that the Commissioner of Civil Supplies of the State will also be entitled to exercise the same power.
The contention now urged on behalf of the appellant is that under Cl. (b) of S. 19 it would be open to the Central Government to appoint either
the State Government or such officer or authority subordinate to it and that it cannot appoint both of them to exercise the powers vested in the
Central Government under S. 5 of the Act. ""Or"" interposed between the State Government and such officer or authority in Sub-Cl. (b) can only
authorise the Central Government to appoint either the one or the other authority. On the other hand Mr. Mohan Kumaramangalam on behalf of
the second respondent has invited our attention to a passage at page 229 of Maxwell on the Interpretation of Statutes, 11th Edn. wherein it is
stated :
To carry out the intention of the legislature it is occasionally found necessary to read the conjunctions ''or'' and ''and'' one for the other.
From this it is argued that we should read the word ""and"" in the place of ""or"" and thereby construe the provision as entitling the Central
Government to appoint not only the State Government but also such officer or authority as it may choose. Support for this contention has also been
sought from a decision of the Supreme Court reported in Mazagaon Dock Ltd. Vs. The Commissioner of Income Tax and Excess Profits Tax,
where while construing S. 42 (2) of the Indian income tax Act, the learned Judges observed that the use of the word ""or"" in the clause would
appear to be rather inappropriate and that the legislature should really be taken to have intended it as meaning ""and"".
But we do not find it necessary in the present case to resort to that rule of interpretation. For if we are to do so, it might be argued that both the
State Government as well as its officer should jointly exercise the power. On the other hand, the object of the legislature is to vest the power under
S. 5 of the Act in as many authorities as would be necessary, having regard to the number of applications that might come in. In our opinion, the
proper construction to be placed on Sub-Cl. (b) of S. 19 will be that it would be open to the Central Government to nominate the State
Government and also such other officer or authority subordinate to the State Government for the purpose of granting permits, each one of them
being the designated authority capable of itself exercising the power delegated. It cannot therefore be contended that once the Central Government
has exercised its power in appointing the State Government as its delegate for exercising the powers Under S. 5 of the Act, it cannot thereafter
appoint any other officer or authority to exercise those powers. It must be open to the Central Government to appoint as many officers or
authorities as it deems fit and necessary for the purpose of granting permits. We may in this connection refer to the provisions of S. 24, C.P.C.,
where the authority to transfer a proceeding in subordinate Courts is given to the District Court or to the High Court to which that Court is
subordinate. It has always been held that in all such cases both the High Court as well as the District Court will have concurrent powers to transfer.
The contention of Mr. K.K. Venugopal for the appellant that the delegation of powers to the Commissioner of Civil Supplies by the Central
Government was not authorised by the Act is therefore without substance.
It was next argued that in issuing the permit the authority functioning under S. 5 read with S. 19 must be held to be performing a quasi judicial
function and as in this case the Commissioner of Civil Supplies had issued certain instructions to his subordinates, the order passed by him granting
the permit to the second respondent must be declared to be void. The basis for the contention is this. On 28th August, 1961 the Commissioner of
Civil Supplies issued certain instructions to his subordinate officers as to the procedure to be followed in the matter of receipt of applications for
the grant of permits for the establishment of new rice mills received by them. Those instructions gave details as to the papers to be forwarded to
the authority concerned, wherever applications for the grant of permits were received. That procedure was merely to facilitate proper disposal of
the applications by the Commissioner for Civil Supplies. In other words, the rules laid down by the authority were intended for facilitating proper
disposal of the applications. We are unable to see how such instructions to the subordinates can be said to fetter a judicial disposal of the matter by
the Commissioner for Civil Supplies. There is, therefore, no substance in this contention. It was next argued that as the application for the permit
was filed in the instant case before the delegation of the power to the Commissioner for Civil Supplies by the Central Government, such application
must have been disposed of by the State Government who alone had authority and not by the Commissioner of Civil Supplies. What happened in
the present case was that the Collector of Coimbatore received in the first instance the application from the second respondent for the issue of a
permit. He then proceeded to make available the requisite information for the authority functioning under S. 19, to decide the question. By the time
he completed securing the materials, power was invested with the Commissioner of Civil Supplies to dispose of the applications for the grant of
permits for the establishment of rice mills. The Collector then forwarded the application which he had received from the second respondent directly
to the Commissioner of Civil Supplies who ultimately disposed of the same. We are unable to see any defect either in the jurisdiction of the
Commissioner of Civil Supplies who finally disposed of the matter or even in the procedure followed by the authorities. The circumstance that on
the date when the application for the permit was handed over to the Collector, the only authority under S. 19 was the State Government cannot
mean that the application could not be forwarded to the Commissioner of Civil Supplies, when the latter authority had obtained the necessary
power to deal with such applications. It is argued that when the Collector received the application he should be deemed to have received it as the
agent of the State Government and as there is no power under the Act in the State Government to transfer such application to the Commissioner of
Civil Supplies, disposal of the application by the latter authority must be regarded as invalid. We are unable to agree. If there are two authorities,
namely, the State Government and the Commissioner of Civil Supplies, it would be open to the superior authority namely, the State Government,
to receive the application and forward the same to their subordinate authority, the Commissioner of Civil Supplies for disposal of the same. No
question of transfer is involved in such a case. Further, power to deal with the applications is a concurrent one; there is no rule which says that the
authority receiving the application should alone deal with it. There are no merits in this appeal which we dismiss with costs.