MUNICIPAL COUNCIL, RATLAM V. VARDICHAND, (1980) 4 SCC 162

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FACTS

In this case, the Ratlam Municipality (appellant) challenges the sense and soundness of the High Court’s affirmation of the trial Court’s order directing the construction of drainage facilities in Ratlam city.

CASE HISTORY

Ward No. 12, New Road, Ratlam town was an area where prosperity and poverty lived as strange bedfellows. The city was filled with cesspools and stinks, dirtying the place beyond endurance. Another contributory cause to the insufferable situation was the discharge from the Alcohol Plant of malodorous fluids into the public street. As a result, the mosquitoes were breeding in the streets. Hence, the residents approached the Magistrate seeking relief.

ISSUES

1. Whether there can be any legal pleas to absolve the municipality from the court’s directive under Section 133 Cr PC?

2. Whether by affirmative action a court can compel a statutory body to carry out its duty to the community by constructing sanitation facilities at great cost and on a time-bound basis?

CASES REFERRED

• Govind Singh v. Shanti Sarup 1979 AIR 143: The Court noted that in a matter of this nature where what is involved is not merely the right of a private individual but the health, safety and convenience of the public at large, the safer course would be to accept the view of the learned Magistrate, who saw for himself the hazard.

JUDGEMENT

Statutory Duty of the Municipality

The Court referred to Section 123 of the M.P. Municipalities Act, 1961, which casts a mandate on the Council to undertake and make reasonable and adequate provision for:

• (b) cleansing public streets, places and sewers, and all places, not being private property, which are open to the enjoyment of the public; removing noxious vegetation, and abating all public nuisances;

• (c) disposing of night-soil and rubbish and preparation of compost manure from night-soil and rubbish.

The Court said that the municipality was oblivious to this obligation towards human well-being and was directly guilty of breach of duty and public nuisance and active neglect.

Power under Section 133 Cr PC

The Magistrate's activist application of Section 133 Cr PC for the larger purpose of making the Ratlam municipal body do its duty and abate the nuisance by affirmative action, gained the Court's appreciation.

• The Court held that the guns of Section 133 go into action wherever there is public nuisance. The public power of the magistrate under the Code is a public duty to the members of the public who are victims of the nuisance, and so he shall exercise it when the jurisdictional facts are present as here.

• The Magistrate’s responsibility under Section 133 Cr PC is to order removal of such nuisance within a time to be fixed in the order.

• Failure to comply with the direction will be visited with a punishment contemplated by Section 188 IPC. The imperative tone of Section 133 Cr PC read with the punitive temper of Section 188 IPC make the prohibitory act a mandatory duty.

Financial Inability Not an Acceptable Plea

The Court categorically rejected the municipality's core defense:

The plea of the municipality that notwithstanding the public nuisance financial inability validly exonerates it from statutory liability has no juridical basis.

• The criminal procedure code operates against statutory bodies and others regardless of the cash in their coffers, even as human rights under Part III of the Constitution have to be respected by the State regardless of budgetary provision.

• Otherwise, a profligate statutory body or governmental agency may legally defy duties under the law by urging in self-defence a self-created bankruptcy or perverted expenditure budget.

• Decency and dignity are non-negotiable facets of human rights and are a first charge on local self-governing bodies.

The Court also agreed with the High Court in rejecting the plea that the time specified in the order was unworkable.