Sachindra Nath Banerjee vs State of West Bengal

D. Basu, J.—This Rule is directed against a resolution dated February 20, 1966, passed by the Commissioner of the Joynagar-Majilpur Municipality enhancing the rate of holdings from 5 to 10%. The Petitioners Nos. 1 and 4 and Respondents Nos. 4 to 11 are the Commissioners of the Municipality and Petitioners Nos. 2, 3 and 5 are some of the rate-payers thereof. They challenge the validity of the resolution enhancing the rate on two grounds, which have been urged at the hearing, as follows:

(a) That the said resolution was rescinded by another resolution passed by the Commissioners at a special meeting held on May 22, 1966, so that the impugned resolution enhancing the taxes had no legal existence and could no longer be enforced, and

(b) that the enhanced rate in question cannot be recovered, inasmuch as the budget for the year which contained the estimated receipts and expenditures was not passed in accordance with the provisions of the Bengal Municipal Act, 1932 (hereinafter called ''the Act''), for instance Sections 113 and 113A.

So far as the first point is concerned, the controversy centres round the validity of the special meeting held on May 22, 1966, upon which the Petitioners rely. It appears that 4 of the II members of the Municipality first requested the Chairman of the Municipality to convene a special meeting u/s 78 of the Act to consider the hardship caused by the enhancement of the rate in question. This notice was duly served upon the remaining Commissioners as required by law. But the Chairman or the Vice-Chairman having failed to convene the special meeting as required in the proposal, the conveners resorted to the provision of Sub-section (2) of Section 78 of the Act and proposed to hold a special meeting on May 22, 1966, at 4-30 p.m., at the municipal office to discuss, inter alia, the impugned resolution and to have it rescinded on the ground of hardship etc. A resolution of rescission was eventually passed by five of the Commissioners.

The Respondents urged that the proceedings of the special meeting were invalid inasmuch as it was held on May 22, 1966, which was declared a municipal holiday by the Vice-Chairman on account of the death of the Chairman which took place in the meantime. The order in question is at annEx. P to the counter-affidavit which says--

the office of the Municipality with all its departments shall remain closed on today and tomorrow, i.e., 21st and 22nd May, 1966, as a mark of respect to our departed Chairman.

It is contended by the Petitioners that though the rooms of the municipal building were thus closed and they could not obtain access thereto, nevertheless, they held the proposed special meeting on the verandah of the municipal building and that, accordingly, it was properly held. The question eventually comes to the legal effect of a holiday being declared by annEx. P as aforesaid. When ''the municipal office with all its departments'' remains closed, the natural result will be that no official business can be transacted. It was urged on behalf of the Petitioners that as a matter of practice meetings are usually held on holidays. The validity of the other proceedings which have been so held on holidays is not before this Court and if they are illegal as to which no pronouncement can be made herein, merely because they have been so held, the impugned meeting cannot be validated. Holding of a special meeting cannot be anything other than an official business of the Commissioners of the Municipality and once it is acknowledged that the Vice-Chairman has power to declare a holiday closing all the offices of the Municipality, the effect of such order will be nullified if the meeting, whether general or special, is held on such holiday.

Collaterally, it was argued that though Section 77(1) of the Act prescribes that the ordinary monthly meetings must be held at the office of the Commissioners, there is no such direction as to the location of the meetings so far as special meetings referred to in Section 78 are concerned. This argument cannot be accepted for the broad reason that the Municipality is a local authority and a representative body having statutory powers and functions. It is, therefore, necessary and as so been specified in the Statute that its business must be transacted in an orderly fashion and at a proper place. Merely because the place of the special meeting is not separately mentioned, it would be too much to come to the conclusion that a special meeting can be held not only outside the municipal office, but anywhere in the world. The place of the meeting is mentioned to be the ''office'' in Section 77(1) in connection with ordinary meetings. Separate provision relating to special meetings had to be made in Section 78, since they were to be held casually. Only because a special meeting can be convened at any time, provided a particular procedure was followed, it does not necessarily follow in this context that the special meeting could be held at any place. Verandah is no doubt a part of the municipal building, but certainly not the ''office'' where the Commissioners sit and transact their business.

Certain other questions were also raised, namely, that the proceedings of a meeting must be recorded in the book kept by the Municipality for this purpose u/s 84, and since the Petitioners had no access to this book on account of the municipal office being closed; the special meeting should be held to be invalid on that ground as well. It is needless to enter into all those matters in details, because in my opinion, when the municipal offices were closed by a lawful order of the Chairman or the Vice-Chairman, no statutory business of the Municipality in exercise of the powers conferred by the Bengal Municipal Act, 1932, could be executed on that date.

The Petitioners, of course, may have their grievance on the ground that the Vice-Chairman did not accede to their request to convene a meeting or to open the doors of the municipal office. There may be other redresses open to the Petitioners as against any arbitrary act having been committed by the Vice-Chairman. But this Court cannot strike down the impugned resolution enhancing the rate so long as it cannot be legally held that the special meeting on for its rescission was duly held on May 22, 1966, which was a declared holiday. The first ground accordingly fails.

As to the second ground it is urged on behalf of the Petitioners that Sections 112 and 113 require that the budget must include the estimate of expenditure as well as receipts for the coming year and that these budget estimates have to be paid for public suggestions for a period of 14 days after they have been so laid in the office of the Commissioners. In the instant case, this provision could not be complied with so far as the proposal for enhancement of the rate was concerned, inasmuch as the budget was passed some 15 minutes after the resolution for enhancement was carried by the Commissioners. Assuming that this was true, as a matter of fact, there is no provision in the Act which invalidates a tax proposal which has been duly passed into a rate by the Commissioners in exercise of their powers conferred in Section 123 et sq included in chap. V of the Act. It is to be noted that the subject of taxation forms a separate chapter apart from the budget proposals which are included in chap. IV. Secondly, it is to be noticed that the only sanction accorded by the Act in respect of the budget is that contained in Section 117 of the Act which says, that once the budget is passed no expenditure in excess of the amount passed therein, excepting what is required for the refund of taxes, can be incurred by the Commissioners. So far as the consequences of any defect in the budget is concerned as to taxing proposals, the Act is altogether silent. It is contended on behalf of the Petitioners that if the proposal to enhance the rate were included in the budget and laid open to the public for suggestions for a period of 14 days, the public who were aggrieved by the enhancement might have made suggestions which might have persuaded the majority of the Commissioners to exclude the matter of enhancement when the budget was passed. As a possibility that may be imagined; but the Act does not accord any sanction so far as procedural defects regarding tax proposals are concerned, as I have already stated.

In the political system laid down by the Constitution, the validity of taxes may be challenged if it is not included in the Finance Act passed by the Legislature or the procedure required for passing the Finance Act were not adopted subject, however, to the overriding provisions of the Constitution which prohibit legal proceedings being taken to challenge the validity to legislative proceedings on the ground of irregularity in the procedure adopted by the Legislature. But all these notions are foreign to the Bengal Municipal Act which is a special Statute and is a self-contained Act relating to municipal affairs. I do not find any justification for holding that the impugned resolution, which was duly passed for enhancing the tax, would be invalid because the proposal for enhancement was not included in the budget which was prepared and laid in terms of Sections 112 and 113 of the Act. This disposes of the second ground as well.

In the result, this petition fails and the Rule is discharged. There will be no orders as to costs.

The interim order granted by this Court on September 21, 1966, is vacated.