Ratlam Municipality, and the Answer to "We Have No Money"

In one line

A magistrate ordered a bankrupt municipality to build drains within a time limit, and the Supreme Court said poverty is no alibi.

In exam wording: in Municipal Council, Ratlam v. Vardhichand, AIR 1980 SC 1622, 1980 SCC (4) 162, the Supreme Court held that section 133 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 confers on a Magistrate a public power which is also a public duty, exercisable whenever the jurisdictional facts of a public nuisance are present; that the Code operates against statutory bodies regardless of the cash in their coffers; that a municipality cannot escape its statutory duty of sanitation by pleading financial inability; and that the Magistrate may give specific directions and fix a time limit for carrying them out.

The facts

Where. Ratlam, in Madhya Pradesh, in a prominent residential locality of the municipality.

What the residents complained of. They applied to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate under section 133 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, saying that the Municipal Council had failed, despite several requests, to meet its basic obligations:

• to provide sanitary facilities on the roads;
• to provide public conveniences for slum dwellers, who were using the road for that purpose;
• and to prevent the discharge, from a nearby alcohol plant, of malodorous fluids into the public street.

They relied on section 123 of the Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act 1961, which imposed the statutory duty.

What the Municipality said in answer, and both defences are worth remembering because both are still made:

One, the residents chose to live there. The owners of the houses had gone to that locality of their own choice, fully aware of the insanitary conditions, and could not now complain.

Two, it had no money. The Council pleaded financial difficulties in constructing drains and providing amenities.

The course of the litigation. The Magistrate found the facts proved and ordered the municipality to provide the amenities and abate the nuisance by constructing drain pipes with a flow of water to wash the filth and stop the stench, failure entailing prosecution under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code. The Sessions Court found the order unjustified. The High Court upheld it. The Municipality came to the Supreme Court by special leave.

The question. Whether a court can by affirmative action 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.

The holding

The answer was yes, and the reasoning is in a series of propositions worth learning close to the Court's own words.

One, section 133 is always available. Wherever there is a public nuisance, the presence of section 133 must be felt, and any contrary opinion is contrary to the law.