TMI Blog1964 (9) TMI 59X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d by the Municipal authorities. A neighbour of hers, one D. D. Goswami, alleged that the variations made by the respondent in carrying out the constructions of her house prejudicially affected him. On the basis of his representation the Municipal Council initiated an inquiry as a result whereof a report was submitted to it in which a finding was recorded that the respondent had effected variations from the sanctioned plan. The President of the Municipal Board con- considered the report and passed an order on September 19, 1956 directing the respondent to stop the unauthorised constructions immediately. It was stated that notwithstanding this order the respondent continued the constructions and completed them. When this was brought to the notice of the Municipal authorities, an order was passed that action be taken against her under S. 210 of the City of Jaipur Municipal Act, 1943. This section provides that where an owner or occupier was required to execute any work under the provisions of the Act and a default was made in the execution thereof, the Municipal Board might cause such work to be executed and the expenses incurred thereby to be recovered from the person in default. It ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ted to provide for and secure uniformity in the forum for Municipal appeals pertaining to the cities of Rajasthan. Its Preamble carries out what is stated in the long title and it runs Whereas it is expedient to provide for and secure uniformity in the forum for Municipal appeals in the different cities of Rajasthan. The different cities, it may be noticed, include inter alia, the city of Jaipur with which we are concerned. The main purpose of the Act is, as recited in the preamble and the long title, to create a uniform forum for entertaining and dealing with Municipal appeals which lay to different authorities in the several separate Municipal enactments in force in the different cities within the State of Rajasthan. The officer or authority designated by the Act as the forum for hearing appeals is the Commissioner and the expression Commissioner is defined in s. 2 which contains definitions of the terms used in the Act, as meaning Commissioner or Additional Commissioner of the Division within the local limits whereof a Municipal authority exercises jurisdiction . The Municipal appeals for which a forum is being provided is, by the Act, treated as a technical ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of sub-section (4) of s. 3 shall mutatis mutandis apply also to appeals and applications under this section. Section 5 contains merely a saving and though not very relevant in the present context, we may quote it for completeness : 5. Saving. Nothing in this Act shall affect any power other than the power to entertain, hear and determine municipal appeals, vested in the Government by any Municipal law. The controversy between the parties rests on the meaning and effect of the expression or a municipal authority occurring in the proviso to s. 4. It may be mentioned that the expression a Municipal authority is defined in s. 2(iv) of the Act and it is common ground that on that definition the President of the Municipal Council who passed the order which was set aside by the State Government was a Municipal Authority. Before considering the arguments addressed to us it would be convenient to briefly advert to the reasoning by which the learned Judges held that the State Government had no jurisdiction to entertain the revision against the order of the Chairman of the Municipal Council which, as stated already, was not under the provisions of the City of Jaipur ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... h are not in accord with the notions of propriety or justice entertained by the Court. No doubt, if there are other provisions in the statute which conflict with them, the Court may prefer the one and reject the other on the ground of repugnance. Surely, that is not the position here. Again, when the words in the statute are reasonably capable of more than one interpretation, the object and purpose of the statute, a general conspectus of its provisions, and the context in which they occur might induce a court to adopt a more liberal or a more strict view of the provisions, as the case may be, as being more consonant with the underlying purpose. But we do not consider it possible to reject words used in an enactment merely for the reason that they do not accord with the context in which they occur. or with the purpose of the legislation as gathered from the preamble or long title. The preamble may, no doubt, be used to solve any ambiguity or to fix the meaning of words which may have more than one meaning, but it can, however, not be used to eliminate as redundant or unintended, the operative provisions of a statute. Besides, if one strictly applied this rule of interpretation that ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ve cited a few decisions one of which was of the Privy Council and the other of this Court in which the construction of a proviso came up for consideration. These cases may be thus summarised. In some of them a question has arisen as to whether the terms of a proviso could be called in aid to determine the scope of the main part to which it is a proviso. This approach and its limitations need not detain us, for obviously that is not the principle that arises for examination in the case before us. There are other decisions to which learned Counsel for the respondent drew our attention in which the question to be considered was whether the proviso was really redundant i.e., enacted ex abundanti cautela. No such principle arises for consi- deration in the proviso before us either. So far as a general principle of construction of a proviso is concerned, it has been broadly stated that the function of a proviso is to limit the main part of the section and carve out something which but for the proviso would have been within the operative part. It is obvious that this is not the function of the proviso to s. 4(1) of the Act, for the operative words in the main part of s. 4(1) prohibit all ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... able on any proper construction of the words employed. If the learned Counsel is right, the clause would read The Government may......... call for any record of any case......... of any appealable order passed by a Commissioner or by a Municipal authority and may pass such orders. This would show how impossible it is to read the word 'order' as confined to appealable order,, which is what the learned Counsel suggests as the proper construction of the proviso, for it would at once be seen that there are no appealable orders of the Commissioner, since s. 4(1) has in terms prohibited all appeals. As the words 'orders of' are not repeated before the words 'a municipal authority',. you cannot, read word 'order' as meaning 'orders declared final by this Act' when applied to the orders of a Commissioner and as meaning I orders subject to appeal under a Municipal law' in relation to the orders of a municipal authority. Besides, it would be somewhat anomalous that s. 3 should provide the forum for appeals which lay under the Municipal Act and in regard to the same matter i.e., those in regard to which a Municipal appeal would lie, make a parallel ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he State Government not merely on the grand that it was beyond their revisions] jurisdiction, but on various other grounds. The learned Judges of the High Court having reached a conclusion in her favour on this around, observed in the course of their judgment The order of the Government is Without Jurisdiction and must be quashed on this ground alone. It is not necessary to go into the other grounds raised in this petition. The learned Counsel for the respondent drew our attention to this passage and submitted that should we allow the appeal on our construction of the proviso to s. 4(1 ), we should remand the case to the High Court for considering the other objections that were raised. Though the learned Counsel for the appellant submitted that we might ourselves deal with the other points, we do not accede to this request. In our opinion the case has to be sent back to the High Court for all the other objections being considered on their merits as may arise on the pleadings and in law. We are not to be understood as having expressed any opinion as to whether any such point arises or their merits. The appeal is accordingly allowed and the order of the High Court allowing the W ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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