Nand Kishore vs State of Punjab Ors.

K.S. Tiwana, J.—Vide this writ petition, the Petitioner who is a Municipal Commissioner of Municipal Committee, Batala wants the quashing of the resolution passed in the meeting of that committee held on May 6, 1981 for adoption of the bye-laws concerning the formation of the sub-committees. The main ground urged in favour of the challenge is that the meeting was held in contravention of the bye-law 2-D whereby, according to the Petitioner, one clear day''s notice which is required by this bye-law, for holding of an urgent meeting was not given. The other allegation made in the petition is that the President, who convened the meeting, does not have the majority of the members with him. He called the meeting on May 6, 1981 when the members of the opposition group were unable to attend the same.

We have gone through the petition and heard the learned Counsel for the Petitioner at length. The learned Counsel for the Petitioner has urged that atleast one days'' clear notice was required for that meeting, as required by bye-law 2-D. This clear day is interpreted by Shri Goyal to mean that the meeting could not be held before the passage of 24 hours. He tried to draw support from Chakrapani Jagannath Prasad v. Chandoo Sahadeo and Anr. AIR 1959 M.P. 84. Bye-law 2-D for purpose of reference is reproduced as under:

The notice and the agenda shall be despatched so that at least one clear day for a meeting that is deemed to be urgent and two clear days for a meeting that is other meeting shall intervene between the date of despatch and the date of the meeting,

Provided that a notice of not less than 48 hours shall be given for the purpose of electing office bearers and that the election of office bearers shall not even with the consent of all members, be held without much notice having been given. Such notice shall be left at the houses of the members through the Peon of the Committee and the report of the Peon shall be final for the delivery or non-delivery of notices.

A perusal of this bye-law shows that its framers used three terms, for the purpose of holding of the meetings. For urgent meeting, one clear days notice was required and for other meeting 2 days clear notice was required. According to the proviso, for the meeting to elect the office bearers, 48 hours notice was required. This use of different terminology makes the mind of the framers of the bye-laws manifest that atleast for the urgent meeting, they did not want to bring one clear day to 24 hours. They meant one clear day calendar wise, that is the following dawn from the date of despatch of the notice of the meeting as provided in bye-law 2-D. The parties are one on the point that the notice was issued on May 5, 1981 and the meeting was actually held on the 6th of May, 1981 at 4.30 P.M In accordance with the intention of bye-law 2-D, in our view, one days clear notice was given by the President for holding of the meeting and the judgment relied upon by the learned Counsel is not helpful to him, as no such language as in bye-law 2-D is to be found in the provisions under interpretation in that judgment.

We do not find any material to further examine the questions of fact which have been raised by the learned Counsel for the Petitioners. Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed in limine.

The learned Counsel made an oral prayer for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. The case does net involve any substantial question of law of general importance requiring decision by the Supreme Court. Certificate is declined.