K.T. Kandaswami Mudaliar vs Panchayat Board and Others

Balakrishna Ayyar, J.—On 25th August, 1955, the Panchayat Board of Takkolam passed a resolution granting a licence to the petitioner to

install an additional electric motor of 15 H.P. On 2nd October, 1955, the President of the Panchayat Board communicated this fact to the

petitioner and in his letter specified the conditions subject to which the licence was granted. The petitioner alleges that on the strength of this licence

he started constructing additional buildings at a large cost and that he also purchased the requisite machinery. On 27th May, 1956, the President of

the Panchayat Board wrote to the petitioner informing him that the licence which had been granted must be cancelled:

in view of the fact that the said mill is outside the industrial area as declared in 1937 and that the horse-power of your motor exceeds in total the

prescribed 20 horse-power

The petitioner then went up to the Government who passed this order:

The petitioner is informed that his request for the grant of permission for the installation of an-additional motor of 15 horse-power for running a rice

huller in the premises of the Kandaswarrrf; Mudaliar Rice Mill in Takkolam Panchayat will not be complied with

The petitioner has therefore come to this Court for the issue of an appropriate writ quashing the orders of the President and the Government of

Madras.

Mr. Changalvaroyan for the petitioner raised two points. As it is possible to dispose of the case on the first of these two points I do not propose

to go into the second. The first point was that the licence had been granted by a resolution of the Panchayat Board, that the cancellation was by the

President of the Panchayat Board and that the President had no power to cancel the resolution of the Panchayat Board. I think that this objection

is well-founded. Sections 24, 29, 31, 33 and 34 of the Madras Act X of 1950 are the provisions of the statute which enact what the powers of the

President are. None of these confers on him any power to cancel a resolution of the Panchayat Board of which he is the President. The scheme of

the Act makes it clear that the position of the President is that of the administrative head of the Panchayat. There is nothing in his position as such

which would empower him to cancel the resolution of the Panchayat Board. The learned Government Pleader referred me to Section 128 of the

Act which confers on Government certain powers for revision. But the Government Order of which the petitioner complains and which I have

already extracted does not purport to have been passed in exercise of the powers of revision conferred by this Section. That being so, it is

impossible to treat it as an order passed by the Government in the exercise of their powers of revision. The position therefore is that there is no

valid order cancelling the licence granted by the Panchayat Board. This petition is therefore allowed and the orders cancelling the licence issued to

the petitioner quashed. The petitioner will be entitled to his costs. Counsel''s fee Rs. 100.