Municipal Council, Ratlam Vs Vardichand, (1980) 4 SCC 162

Hon'ble Supreme Court of India observed as under, "The key question we have to answer is whether by affirmative action a court can compel a statutory body to carry out its duty to the community by constructing sanitation facilities ….
Had the municipal council and its executive officers spent half of this litigative zeal on cleaning up the street and constructing the drains by rousing the people’s sramdan resources and laying out the city’s limited financial resources, the people’s needs might have been largely met long ago….
So the guns of Section 133 go into action wherever there is public nuisance. The public power of the magistrate under the Code is a public duty to the members of the public who are victims of the nuisance, and so he shall exercise it when the jurisdictional facts are present as here. “All power is a trust - that we are accountable for its exercise - that, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist.” Discretion becomes a duty when the beneficiary brings home the circumstances for its benign exercise….
plea is not that the facts are wrong but that the law is not right because the municipal funds being insufficient it cannot carry out the duties under Section 123 of the Act….
under Part III of the Constitution have to be respected by the State regardless of budgetary provision. Likewise, Section 123 of the Act has no saving clause when the municipal council is penniless….
Public nuisance, because of pollutants being discharged by big factories to the detriment of the poorer sections, is a challenge to the social justice component of the rule of law. Likewise, the grievous failure of local authorities to provide the basic amenity of public conveniences drives the miserable slum-dwellers to ease in the streets, on the sly for a time, and openly thereafter, because under Nature’s pressure bashfulness becomes a luxury and dignity a difficult art. A responsible municipal council constituted for the precise purpose of preserving public health and providing better finances cannot run away from its principal duty by pleading financial inability. Decency and dignity are non-negotiable facets of human rights….
providing drainage systems- not pompous and attractive, but in working condition and sufficient to meet the needs of the people - cannot be evaded if the municipality is to justify its existence….
the court, armed with the provisions of the two Codes and justified by the obligation under Section 123 of the Act, must adventure into positive directions as it has done in the present case. Section 133 CrPC authorise the prescription of a time-limit for carrying out the order….
Magistrate only expected the Municipal Council and the Town. Improvement Trust to evolve a plan and to start planning about it within six months; the learned Magistrate has rightly not fixed the time-limit within which that plan will be completed….
Before us the major endeavour of the Municipal Council was to persuade us to be pragmatic and not to force impracticable orders on it since it had no wherewithal to execute the order. Of course, we agree that law is realistic and not idealistic and what cannot be performed under given circumstances cannot be prescribed as a norm to be carried out. From that angle it may well be that while upholding the order of the magistrate, we may be inclined to tailor the direction to make it workable. But first things first and we cannot consent to a value judgment where people’s health is a low priority. Nevertheless, we are willing to revise the order into a workable formula the implementation of which would be watch-dogged by the court….
We have no hesitation in holding that if these directions are not complied with the subDivisional Magistrate will prosecute the officers responsible. Indeed, this Court will also consider action to punish for contempt in case of report by the sub-Divisional Magistrate of wilful breach by any officer.”