Deemed grant of municipal certificates applies when no decision is communicated within the statutory period

A statutory deeming fiction under the Kerala Municipality Act must be given full effect: where applications for a no objection certificate and sanitation certificate are not communicated within thirty days, they are treated as allowed by law. The text also states that beer and wine fall within the liquor category relevant to the provision governing dangerous or offensive trade, so the thirty-day consideration period could not be denied on the ground that those items were outside its scope. The operative consequence described is that the municipal certificates were deemed granted and the excise licence application was to be processed on that basis.

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Issues: (i) Whether the applications for no objection certificate and sanitation certificate were deemed to have been allowed under Section 447(6) of the Kerala Municipality Act when no decision was communicated within thirty days. (ii) Whether beer and wine could be treated as falling within the category of dangerous or offensive trade for the purpose of Section 447(3) of the Kerala Municipality Act.

Issue (i): Whether the applications for no objection certificate and sanitation certificate were deemed to have been allowed under Section 447(6) of the Kerala Municipality Act when no decision was communicated within thirty days.

Analysis: Section 447(6) creates a deeming fiction that an application for licence or permission shall be treated as allowed if no order is communicated within thirty days. The provision had been deleted and later reintroduced with effect from 09.07.2013, and the petitioner's applications remained undecided beyond the statutory period. A deeming provision must be given full effect, and all necessary consequences of the legal fiction must follow.

Conclusion: Yes. The no objection certificate and sanitation certificate were to be treated as deemed granted in favour of the petitioner.

Issue (ii): Whether beer and wine could be treated as falling within the category of dangerous or offensive trade for the purpose of Section 447(3) of the Kerala Municipality Act.

Analysis: Section 447(3) prescribes the thirty-day time limit for considering applications for licence or permission to use premises for dangerous or offensive trade. The contention that beer and wine are outside that category was rejected because foreign liquor, as understood under the Abkari Act, includes them. Accordingly, the statutory time limit could not be denied on that basis.

Conclusion: Yes. Beer and wine were treated as covered by the relevant liquor category for the purpose of applying Section 447(3).

Final Conclusion: The deemed grant of the municipal certificates entitled the petitioner to have the excise licence application processed on that basis, and the municipal authorities were directed to act accordingly.

Ratio Decidendi: A statutory deeming fiction must be given full effect, and once the prescribed period expires without communication of an order, the law treats the application as allowed together with all necessary and incidental consequences.

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