A.N. Venugopal Gowda, J.The petitioners, President and Members of the Gram Panchayat, Gudisagar, Navalgund Taluk, have filed these petitions challenging a notification of the State Government, as at Annexure-A, issued in exercise of the power under Section 5 of the Registration Act, 1908. By the said notification, amongst others, 4 villages, namely, Gudisagar, Kadadalli, Nagnur and Sotkanal were included in the jurisdiction of the Sub-Registrar, Annigeri.

2. Sri B.V. Somapur, learned advocate, firstly contended that the Act of the State Government in issuing Annexure-A, being an administrative act should have been proceeded by a personal hearing to all the affected parties like the petitioners. Secondly, respondent No. 1 has not kept in view the guidelines issued vide Annexure-H, in the matter of constitution of proposed new taluks. Thirdly, Navalgund Town being at a near distance of about 5-6 kms from the said villages and Annigeri town being far away i.e., about 28-30 kms, the respondents are subjected to severe hardship and hence, interference is called for.

3. Smt. K. Vidyavathi, learned AGA, on the other hand submitted that the power exercised by the State Government under Section 5 of the Act is legislative in character and hence, there cannot be any grievance with regard to not providing opportunity of hearing before issuing of the notification, as at Annexure-A. She further contended that, Annexure-H being an administrative instruction, writ in the nature of mandamus cannot be issued to enforce the same. She further contended that Annexure-A having been issued in public interest, it is impermissible to sit in appeal over the Governments decision in the matter relating to Annexure-A and examine the claim with regard to inconvenience, hardship, etc., sought to be made out by the petitioners.

4. Perused the writ record and considered the rival contentions. Notification vide Annexure-A, has been issued in exercise of the powers under Sub-sections (1) and (2) of Section 5 of the Act. The same reads as under:

"S. 5. Districts and sub-districts.--(1) For the purposes of this Act, the State Government shall form districts and sub-districts, and shall prescribe, and may alter, the limits of such districts and sub-districts.

(2) The districts and sub-districts formed under this section, together with the limits thereof, and every alternation of such limits, shall be notified in the Official Gazette."

5. In Sundarjas Kanyalal Bhathija and others Vs. The Collector, Thane, Maharashtra and others, , on the question of applicability of rules of natural justice to legislative action, by quoting with approval a passage in Megarry Bates v. Lord Hailshal, (1972) 1 WLR 1373, it has been held as follows:

"In the present case, the committee in question has an entirely different function: It is legislative rather than administrative or executive. The function of the committee is to make or refuse to make a legislative instrument under delegated powers. The order, when made, will lay down the remuneration for solicitors generally and the terms of the order will have to be considered and construed and applied in numberless cases in the future. Let me accept that in the sphere of the so-called quasi-judicial the rules of natural justice run, and that in the administrative or executive field, there is a general duty of fairness. Nevertheless, these considerations do not seem to me to affect the process of legislation, whether primary or delegated. Many of those affected delegated legislation and affected very substantially, are never consulted in the process of enacting that legislation; and yet they have no remedy. Of course, the informal consultation of representative bodies by the legislative authority is a common place; but although a few statutes have specifically provided for a general process of publishing draft delegated legislation and considering objections (see, for example, the Factories Act, 1961 Schedule 4), I do not know any implied right to be consulted or make objections, or any principle upon which the Courts may enjoin the legislative process at the suit of those who contend that insufficient time for consultation and consideration has been given. I accept that the fact that the order will take the form of a statutory instrument does not per se make it immune from attack, whether by injunction or otherwise; but what is important is not its form but its nature, which is plainly legislative.

The rules of natural justice are not applicable to legislative action, plenary or subordinate. The procedural requirement of hearing is not implied in the exercise of legislative powers unless hearing was expressly prescribed."

6. With regard to the distinction between the Legislative Act and an Administrative Act, learned author Prof. Wade in the administrative law 7th Edition Page 570 has stated that, there is no Right to be heard before making of Legislation and in cases of Rules and Orders, which are clearly legislative as opposed to administrative, there is normally no room for the principles of natural justice which entitles persons affected to a fair hearing in advance. It has been further stated as follows:

"A distinction often made between Legislative and Administrative acts is between the general and particular. A Legislative act is the creation and promulgation of a general rule of conduct without reference to particular cases. An administrative act cannot be exactly defined, but it includes the adoption of a policy, the making and issue of a specific direction and the application of a general rule to a particular case in accordance with the requirements of a policy or expediency or administrative practice."

7. In Tulsipur Sugar Co. Ltd. Vs. The Notified Area Committee, Tulsipur, , Apex Court has held that, if certain other provisions of any statute is made applicable by any declaration or act of the State Government, then such declaration or Act is legislative. The relevant portion reads thus:

"We are concerned in the present case with the power of the State Government to make a declaration constituting a geographical area into a town area under Section 3 of the Act which does not require the State Government to make such declaration after giving notice of its intention so to do to the members of the public and inviting their representations regarding such action. The power of the State Government to make a declaration under Section 3 of the Act is legislative in character because the application of the rest of the provisions of the Act to the geographical area which is declared as a town area is dependent upon such declaration. Section 3 of the Act is in the nature of a conditional legislation."

8. In view of the above, the point for consideration is, whether the power of the State Government in issuing the notification, as at Annexure-A, is administrative or legislative in character and whether the petitioners or other affected persons, if any were required to be heard personally before issuing the notification of alteration of limits of the registration district and sub-district, under Section 5(1) of the Act

9. The State Government, for the purpose of Act has the statutory duty to form districts and sub-districts and prescribe and alter the limits of such districts and sub-districts and every alteration of the limits shall be notified in the official gazette. In exercise of the power conferred under the Act, the notification, vide Annexure-A, was issued, altering the limits of the sub-Registrar, Navalgund. Thus, the power exercised under Section 5 is legislative in character and not administrative.

10. In Rameshchandra Kachardas Porwal and Others Vs. State of Maharashtra and Others, , the traders of Maharashtra , Karnataka and Bihar, had called in question the action of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee of the 3 states asking them to shift their place of business to the market area on many grounds including the one relating to inviting and hearing of objections. Repelling the contention, Apex Court has held that, the change of market yard is a legislative function and principles of natural justice cannot be invoked before so changing. The relevant portion of the judgment reads as follows:

"In one of the Bihar cases it was further submitted that when a market yard was disestablished at one place and established at another place, it was the duty of the concerned authority to invite and hear objections. Failure to do so was a violation of the principles of natural justice and the notification disestablishing the market yard at one place and establishing it elsewhere was therefore, bad. It was said that even as there was express provision for inviting and hearing objections before a "market area" was declared under the Act, so should objections be invited and heard before a "market yard" was established at any particular place. The principles of natural justice decided it. We are unable to agree. We are here not concerned with the exercise of a judicial or quasi-judicial function where the very nature of function involves the application of the rules of natural justice, or of an administrative function affecting the rights of persons, wherefore, a duty to act fairly. We are concerned with legislative activity; We are concerned with the making of a legislative instrument, the declaration by notification of the Government that a certain place shall be a principal market yard for a market area, upon which declaration certain statutory provisions at once spring into action and certain consequences prescribed by statute follow forthwith. The making of the declaration, in the contest, is certainly an Act legislative in character and does not oblige the observance of the rules of natural justice. In Bates v. Lord Halisham, (1972) 1 WLR 1373, Megarry J., pointed out that the rules of natural justice do not run in the sphere of legislation."

11. In J.R. Raghupathy and Others Vs. State of A.P. and Others, , the question which was considered by the Apex Court was whether the High Court while deciding the view taken by the authorities concerned to shift the market place from one place to another by exercising the power conferred under the Andhra Pradesh Districts (Formation) Act, 1974, as amended by the Andhra Pradesh Districts (Formation) Amendment Act, 1985 and the rules framed thereunder was right or otherwise. Dealing with the effect of the guidelines or the executive orders, has held as follows:

"18. Broadly speaking, the contention on behalf of the State Government is that relief under Article 226 of the Constitution is not available to enforce administrative rules, regulations or instructions which have no statutory force, in the absence of exceptional circumstances. It is well settled that mandamus does not lie to enforce departmental manuals or instructions not having any statutory force, which do not give rise to any legal right in favour of the petitioner. The law on the subject is succinctly stated in Durga Das Basus Administrative Law, 2nd edn. at p. 144:

"Administrative instructions, rules or manuals which have no statutory force, are not enforceable in a court of law. Though for breach of such instructions, the public servant may be held liable by the State and disciplinary action may be taken against him, a member of the public who is aggrieved by the breach of such instructions cannot seek any remedy in the courts. The reason is, that not having the force of law, they cannot confer any legal right upon any body, and cannot, therefore, be enforced even by writs under Article 226.

The learned author however rightly points out at p. 145:

Even though a non-statutory rule, bye-law or instruction may be changed by the authority who made it, without any formality and it cannot ordinarily be enforced through a court of law, the party aggrieved by its non-enforcement may, nevertheless, get relief under Article 226 of the Constitution where the non-observance of the non-statutory rule or practice would result in arbitrariness or absence of fair play or discrimination,- particularly where the authority making such non-statutory rule or the like comes within the definition of State under Article 12.

In G.J. Fernandez Vs. State of Mysore and Others, , the petitioner submitting the lowest tender assailed the action of the Chief Engineer in addressing a communication to all the tenderers stating that even the lowest tender was unduly high and enquired whether they were prepared to reduce their tenders. One of them having reduced the amount of his tender lower than the lowest, the Chief Engineer made a report to the Technical Sub-Committee which made its recommendations to the Major Irrigation Projects Control Board, the final authority, which accepted the tender so offered. The High Court dismissed the writ petition holding that there was no breach of the conditions of tender contained in the Public Works Department Code and further that there was no discrimination which attracted the application of Article 14. The question that fell for consideration before this Court was whether the Code consisted of statutory rules or not. The so-called Rules contained in the Code were not framed under any statutory enactment or the Constitution. Wanchoo, CJ speaking for the Court held that under Article 162 the executive power of the State enables the government to issue administrative instructions to its servants how to act in certain circumstances, but that would not make such instructions statutory rules the breach of which is justiciable. It was further held that non-observance of such administrative instructions did not give any right to a person like the appellant to come to court for any relief on the alleged breach of the instructions. That precisely is the position here. The guidelines are merely in the nature of instructions issued by the State Government to the Collectors regulating the manner in which they should formulate their proposals for formation of a Revenue Mandal or for location of its Headquarters keeping in view the broad guidelines laid down in Appendix I to the White Paper. It must be stated that the guidelines had no statutory force and they had also not been published in the Official Gazette. The guidelines were mere departmental instructions meant for the Collectors. The ultimate decision as to formation of a Revenue Mandal or location of its Headquarters was with the government. It was for that reason that the Government issued the preliminary notification under Sub-section (5) of Section 3 of the Act inviting objections and suggestions. The objections and suggestions were duly processed in the Secretariat and submitted to the Cabinet Sub-Committee along with its comments. The note of the Collector appended to the proposal gave reasons for deviating from the guidelines in some of the aspects. Such deviation was usually for reasons of administrative convenience keeping in view the purpose and object of the Act i.e. to bring the administration nearer to the people. The Cabinet Sub-Committee after consideration of the objections and suggestions received from the Gram Panchayats and members of the public and other organisations as well as the comments of the Secretariat and the note of the Collector came to a decision applying the standards of reasonableness, relevance and purpose while keeping in view the object and purpose of the legislation, published a final notification under Sub-section (5) of Section 3 of the Act. There is nothing on record to show that the decision of the State Government in any of these cases was arbitrary or capricious or was one not reached in good faith or actuated with improper considerations or influenced by extraneous considerations. In a matter like this, conferment of discretion upon the government in the matter of formation of a Revenue Mandal or location of its headquarters in the nature of things necessarily leaves the government with a choice in the use of the discretion conferred upon it."

In view of the above, there is no merit in the contentions urged by Sri B.V. Somapur. The first respondent, in public interest having issued Annexure-A, by virtue of the power conferred in the statute, I do not find any justification to quash the impugned notification, as at Annexure-A. Consequently, petitions being devoid of merit are rejected, with no order as to costs.