1964 (4) TMI 117

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....opriate writ quashing the proceedings of the meeting which culminated in the resolution of no confidence against him. Prayer; were made also for some consequential reliefs. Holenarsipur Municipality has twenty Councillors. Thirteen out of the them sent a request to the President to convene a special general meeting to discuss a resolution expressing no confidence in him as President. This request was handed over to the President on 25th September 1963. As however he did not take any steps for convening the meeting the Vice President acted in the matter-calling a meeting to discuss the resoulation to express no confidence in the President. A notice under the Vice-President's signature stating that it was proposed to hold a special general body meeting of the Municipality on the 14th October 1963 at 10 A.M. in the office premises and asking the members to be present in time was served on the Councillors. One copy of the notice was also posted up at the Municipal Office as required by 27(3) of the Mysore Town Municipalities Act, 1951 (herein- after referred to as "the Act"). The notice bore the date 10th October 1963. On fifteen of the twenty Councillors the notice was personally ....

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....they must he held to have been given on that date even though they were ,actually served on the 11th, 12th and 13th; but, apart from that the High Court was of opinion that the provision about' three days' notice was only directory and not mandatory and so the omission to give notice would not affect the validity of the resolution. All the three grounds raised in the petition were urged before us in support of the appeal. As regards the petitioner's contention that the meeting was not held in accordance with law as he was not allowed to preside, we are of opinion, on a consideration of what material there is on the record, that it was after he left the meeting that the Vice President took the chair and thereafter the no confidence resolution was moved and passed. There can therefore be no question of any contravention of the requirement that the President shall preside. There is. our opinion, no substance also in the contention that the proviso to s.23(9) was contravened. The proviso runs thus: - "Provided that no such resolution shall be moved unless notice of the resolution is signed by not less than one-third of the whole number of the Councillors and at least ....

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....ed there invalid? The use of the word "shall" is not conclusive on the question. As in all other matters of statutory construction the decision of this question depends on the ascertainment of the legislature's intention. Was it the legislature's intention in making the provision that the failure to comply with it shall have the consequence of making what is done invalid in law? That is the question to be answered. To ascertain the intention the Court has to examine carefully the object of the statute, the consequence that may follow from insisting on a strict observance of the particular provision and above all the general scheme of the other provisions of which it forms a part. In the State of U.P. v. Manbodhan Lal Srivastava ([1958] S.C.R. 533) where the question arose whether the provisions of Art. 320(3)(c) of the Constitution are mandatory (which provides that the Union Public Service Commission or the State Public Service Commission shall be consulted on certain disciplinary matters), this Court laid stress on the fact that the proviso to the Article contemplates that the President or the Governor as the case may be make regulations specifying the matters in which ei....

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....nt meetings and Councillors are expected to make it convenient to attend these meetings even at the cost of some inconvenience to themselves. Where the special general meeting is to dispose of some matter of great urgency it is considered that a period ,of even less than three clear days' notice would be sufficient. A consideration of the object of these provisions and the manner in which the object is sought to be achieved indicates that while the legislature did intend that ordinarily the notice as mentioned should be given it could not have intended that the fact that the notice is of less than the period mentioned in the section and thus the Councillors had less time than is ordinarily considered reasonable to arrange his other business to be free to attend the meeting, should have the serious result of making the proceedings of the meeting invalid. It is important to notice in this connection one of the pro- visions in s.36 of the Act. It is in these words: - "No resolution of a municipal council or any committee appointed under this Act shall be deemed invalid on account of any irregularity in the service of notice upon any councillor or member provided the proceedi....