Recorded reasons are mandatory for emergency statutory powers, and failure to state them vitiates resulting demands.

A statutory emergency power that bypasses notice and inquiry can be invoked only if the authority records reasons in the order itself. The recorded-reasons safeguard was treated as mandatory, and its absence could not be cured by file notes, reports, or a bare recital of statutory language; the resulting orders and downstream demands were therefore invalid. A writ court may quash demands founded on void jurisdictional orders, and the availability of alternative statutory remedies does not bar relief where the impugned demands rest on a failure to satisfy a condition precedent. Prior timing of some orders before the Constitution did not prevent challenge to later demands.

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Issues: (i) Whether the requirement under section 5A that the Collector record reasons for invoking the emergency procedure was mandatory and whether non-compliance rendered the orders and consequential demands invalid. (ii) Whether the writ court could quash the demands founded on those orders and whether the existence of alternative statutory remedies or pre-Constitution orders barred relief.

Issue (i): Whether the requirement under section 5A that the Collector record reasons for invoking the emergency procedure was mandatory and whether non-compliance rendered the orders and consequential demands invalid.

Analysis: Section 5A was treated as a departure from the normal procedure under sections 3 to 5, which contemplated notice and inquiry before liability was fastened. The emergency power could be used only where delay would itself cause the statutory consequence, and the requirement that the Collector record reasons was the only express safeguard against arbitrary bypassing of the normal procedure. The absence of recorded reasons could not be cured by relying on file materials, engineer reports, or by treating the recital of the statutory language as equivalent to reasons. The distinction was drawn between the conclusion that an emergency existed and the separate obligation to state the reasons for that conclusion in the order itself.

Conclusion: The requirement to record reasons was mandatory, its breach vitiated the orders, and the resulting demands were invalid.

Issue (ii): Whether the writ court could quash the demands founded on those orders and whether the existence of alternative statutory remedies or pre-Constitution orders barred relief.

Analysis: The challenge before the writ court was directed against the demands and their enforcement, not merely against the administrative orders in the abstract. Since the orders under section 5A were void for want of compliance with a jurisdictional condition precedent, they could not support liability under the subsequent apportionment and demand provisions. The fact that some orders were made before the Constitution did not matter because the demands were issued later, and the lack of objection by the affected parties could not amount to acquiescence where the statute itself provided no prior hearing. The availability of other statutory remedies did not oust the writ jurisdiction in the circumstances.

Conclusion: The writ court had jurisdiction to grant relief, and neither alternative remedy nor prior timing of the orders barred the challenge.

Final Conclusion: The appeals failed because the emergency procedure had been invoked without satisfying the statutory safeguard of recorded reasons, leaving the foundation of the demands legally unsustainable.

Ratio Decidendi: When a statute makes the recording of reasons a condition for invoking an exceptional power that bypasses notice and inquiry, compliance is mandatory and failure to record reasons vitiates the resulting action.

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