P L D 1956 (W (PLP)

KAYANI, J.‑--Muhammad Nawaz Khan, an accountant in the service of the Punjab Road Transport Board, has brought this writ petition against his suspension by the Chairman of the Board. He was suspended on 10th January 1956, pursuant to being involved in a case under sections 409 and 420, P. P. C. His principal objection to the suspension, with which alone we are dealing here, is that the Punjab Road Transport Board Rules, 1952, under which the Chairman had exercised his power, were invalid inasmuch as they had not been laid before the Provincial Assembly as required by section 133 (3), Motor Vehicles Act, 1939. Section 133 reads thus :‑ "(1) Every power to make rules given by this Act is subject to the condition of the rules being made after previous publication. (2) All rules made under this Act shall be published in the official Gazette, and shall, unless some later date is appointed, come into force on the date of such publication. (3) All rules made under this Act by the Central Govern ment or by any Provincial Government shall be laid for not less than fourteen days before the Central or Provincial Legislature, as the case may be, as soon as possible after they are made, and shall be subject to such modifications as the Legislature may make during the session in which they s are so laid." The Road Transport Board Rules were made under the authority of subsection (7) of section 43‑A, which was inserted in the Motor Vehicles Act by an amendment of 1951, provid ing for the constitution of Boards. The counsel for the Board argued that since section'43‑A (lid not exist when section 133 was enacted, the provisions of the latter section did not govern the rules made under section 43‑A. We have no hesitation in rejecting this argument, as section 133 applies to all rules made under this Act", and section 43‑A is now a part of the Act. What section 133 requires in the first instance is that there should be previous publication. This is subsection (1). Next, it is stated in subsection (2) that they shall be published in the Gazette and that they come into force from the date of such publication. Next, subsection (3) requires that the rules so made shall be laid for not less than fourteen days before the Provincial Legislature "as soon as possible after they are made", and shall be subject to such modifications as the Legislature may make during the session in which they are so laid. It is argued for the Board that the injunction is merely directory, because the rules are already in force, and remain in force unless they are modified. The argument is based on Krishnan v. Secretary Road Transport Authority (A I R 1956 Andhra 129) where the validity of the Madras Motor Vehicles Rules was challeng ed on the same ground as is urged here. The learned judges in that case, after quoting amply from English and American authorities and after stating that "we must concede there is force in the view expressed by Bernard Schwarts in his book on 'The Law and Executive in Britain' that the rule (of Parliamentary control) is mandatory", took the view, "rather reluctantly", that in the case of a statute directing rules to be laid before the Legislature without any condition attached, the rule is only directory. "Though the statute says that the rules shall be laid before the Parliament, as the provision in the statute is conceived in public interests, the dereliction of the duty by the Minister or other officer concerned in not following the procedure should not be made to affect the members of the public governed by the rules." In making the public interest the rule of guidance, the learned judges had perhaps in their mind the following passage from Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes (ninth edition, page 374): "It may perhaps be found generally correct to say that nullification is the natural and usual consequence of disobedience, but the question is in the main governed by considerations of convenience and justice, and when that result would involve general inconvenience or injustice to innocent persons, or advantage to those guilty of the neglect, without promoting the real aim and object of the enactment, such an intention is not to be attributed to the Legislature. Only, the learned judges did not pay sufficient attention to "the real aim and object of the enactment", which was tog make delegated legislation subject to Parliamentary control. The Punjab Road Transport Board Rules, 1952, give vast powers to the Board‑-to operate road transport service in the Province, to provide for ancilary services, to store goods, to provide bus stands and amenities and facilities for passengers, to manufacture, purchase, maintain and repair rooling stock, vehicles, appliances plant, equipment etc, to buy land, to provide for its employees living accommodation, to frame regulations determining the conditions of service for its officers and servants, to delegate its powers to the Chairman, members and officers, etc., etc., while on the one hand the Legislature made it convenient for the Board to operate the rules from the date of their publication, it safeguarded its own superlative powers by providing that, "as soon as possible", the rules shall be placed before it for scrutiny. This only means that if the rules were published in January 1952, they should have been placed before the Legislature in the next session, and for at least fourteen days. The period of fourteen days is an additional insistence on the necessity of scrutiny. It is not a mere formality. The transport service is essentially a matter of public interest, and affects the common man, whose interests are safeguarded by his own representatives. Although the Government is supposed to be of the people, in the present political context we all know that it represents what is known as the official point of view, and we are aware that, standing in bold contrast to it is the public point of view. Consequently, the very object of the enactment is defeated if the rules are not) subjected to legislative scrutiny. The normal rule should be that where a thing is required to be done in a certain way, it should be invalid if not done in that way. The danger of regarding imperative enactments as merely directory cannot be too strongly emphasised. A clear instance of a directory statute appears in the following passage from Maxwell (page 380): "To hold that an Act which required an officer to prepare and deliver to another officer a list of voters on or before a certain day, under a penalty, made a list not delivered till a later day invalid, would in effect put it in the power of the person charged with the duty of preparing it to disenfranchise the electors, a conclusion to unreasonable for acceptance." It is this that is meant by "considerations of convenience and justice", and we wish to dwell a little on this petphrase, which is utilised to cover all inconvenient situations. For whenever a certain law is found to be invalid, its previous operation has to be undone, and this is always inconvenient to a number of people. In some cases hardship may also be caused. We do not, however, for that reason hold in favour of the validity of such law. The first consideration in such a case is the object of the enactment, and considerations of convenience and justice are made subservient to it. In the case of the voters' list, for instance, the object of the enactment is not defeated if the list is not delivered in time. On the contrary, it is defeated if the list becomes invalid. The principal object is to secure a voters' list and its delivery within a certain period is a subsidiary object. On the other hand, the effect of invalidating it by reason of non‑delivery within time is fatal to the voters without any fault on their part. What actually happens here is that there is a mere failure in the performance of a duty imposed by the Act. We say "a mere failure", because in cases of the "imperative" kind also there is a failure in such performance, but, in addition, a privilege or power is affected. Thus, where rules are not laid before the Legislature, there is not only a failure of duty by the officer charged with the task; the privilege of the Legislature to modify them if necessary is also taken away. "Where powers, rights or immunities are granted with a direction that certain regulations, formalities or conditions shall be complied with, it seems neither unjust nor inconvenient to exact a rigorous observance of them as essential to the acquisition of the right or authority conferred, and it is therefore probable that such was the intention of the Legislature. But when a public duty is imposed and the statute requires that it shall be performed in a certain manner, or within a certain time, or under other specified conditions, such prescriptions may well be regarded as intended to be directory only in cases when injustice or inconvenience to others who have no control over those exercising the duty would result if such require ments were essential and imperative." (Maxwell page 374). We are not aware of any reported English case in which the requirement that rules should be laid before Parliament as soon as possible and shall be subject to disapproval has been held to be un‑imperative. A very important note on this point occurs in the Law Quarterly Review (Vol. 65, page 439) which has been reproduced by the learned Judges in the Andhra High Court case and may profitably be repro duced here. "The point does not appear to have arisen in any reported English case, although the Home Secretary's failure to lay a series of National Fire Service Regulations before Parliament led to the National Fire Service Regulations (Indemnity) Act, 1944, which not only indemnified the Home Secretary, but also provided (perhaps ex abundanti cautela) that the Regulations shall be deemed to have been duly laid before Parliament in accordance with the requirements of the statute under which they were made. However, in the unreported case of Springer v. Deoley,17th May 1949, the Court of Error of Barbados held that in such a case the statutory provision was mandatory and the Regulations invalid. Collymore, C. J. approved the words in the Court below that `where the Legislature delegates its law‑making power to a subordinate authority and reserves the right to review the Regulations made by such subordinate authority, and if necessary, to disallow them, and attaches conditions to secure that it shall have the apportunity to exercise its powers of review as the supreme legislative authority, such conditions are mandatory." Again, "few would be surprised to find the Courts construing an Act in such a way as to make Parliamentary control effective rather than ineffective"; which means that the contrary interpretation should surprise many. We are altogether in favour of Parliamentary control, and hold that since the Rules were not laid before the Legis lature "as soon as possible"‑they have not been laid for three A years, not even after this petition was instituted‑they have become invalid from the time when they should have been first laid. The petition is accepted with costs and the respondent is directed to reinstate the petitioner at once. A. H. Petition accepted.