Cancelled licence, no hearing, late appeal
On 3 March the Licensing Officer of Maripur Municipal Corporation cancelled the eating-house licence of Sagar Refreshments by a two-line order: 'Complaint received from residents. Inspection shows insanitary conditions. Licence cancelled with immediate effect.' The order was served on 7 March. No show-cause notice was issued and the sanitary inspector's report was not furnished to the licensee, although the governing municipal rule provides that 'no licence shall be cancelled without giving the holder a reasonable opportunity of being heard, and every order shall record reasons'. The file shows that the same Licensing Officer had, three weeks earlier, signed a note recommending cancellation and had himself forwarded the residents' complaint to the sanitary inspector. The licence, which covered nine employees, was valid to 31 March. The licensee filed an appeal on 9 April; the appellate rules allow 30 days from service, with condonation for sufficient cause. The licensee asks for relief so that the business can reopen.
1. Identify the procedural defects and separate those that a fresh hearing could cure from those it could not.
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Four defects:
- No show-cause notice or hearing - breach of the express rule and of natural justice. Curable: a fresh proceeding with notice and a hearing can cure it.
- No reasons - the rule requires reasons, and a two-line order gives an appellate authority nothing to review. Curable by a reasoned order after hearing.
- Non-disclosure of the inspection report - the licensee cannot meet evidence he has never seen. Curable, but only if the report is furnished well before the hearing and time is allowed to respond.
- Pre-judgment by the deciding officer - the same officer recommended cancellation three weeks earlier and referred the complaint for inspection. This is not curable by the same officer re-hearing the matter, however fairly he conducts it: a person who has already formed and recorded a view is disqualified from deciding. A different officer must hear the case.
Ranking: defect 4 is the one that dictates the remedy. Defects 1-3 would be cured by a remand; defect 4 means the remand must be to a different officer, otherwise the re-hearing is void for bias. All four together also make the order unsustainable on appeal, since the appellate authority cannot supply the reasons the statute required the original authority to record.
2. Advise on the limitation question: is the appeal maintainable?
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Time runs from service on 7 March. Thirty days from 7 March expires on 6 April (March has 31 days: 24 days to 31 March plus 6 days in April). The appeal was filed on 9 April - three days late. Even on the stricter computation from the date of the order (3 March), it would be seven days late. So the appeal is not automatically barred, but it is out of time and needs condonation.
Sufficient cause is strong here: the order was unreasoned and unaccompanied by the report, so the licensee could not know the case against him until he obtained the file; the cancellation terminated the livelihood of nine employees; the licence had two months left to run; and the defects go to the root of the proceeding, not to the merits. Delay of three days, fully explained, is ordinarily condoned where the underlying challenge is to a jurisdictional failure.
Caution for the licensee: the licence expired on 31 March, so the appeal can set aside the cancellation but cannot by itself revive it. The practical relief to seek is condonation of the three-day delay, setting aside of the 3 March order, and a direction that any refusal of renewal be made only after a hearing before a different officer.
3. Draft the operative portion of the remand order (four sentences or fewer) that disposes of the appeal.
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'The delay of three days in filing is condoned. The order dated 3 March is set aside as being in breach of the requirement of a hearing and of reasons, and the matter is remitted to the Commissioner. The Commissioner shall assign the case to an officer other than the officer who passed the order, who shall furnish the licensee a copy of the inspection report, give a hearing within fifteen days, and pass a reasoned order within thirty days. Until that order is passed, no coercive step shall be taken against the licensee, and any application for renewal of the licence shall be dealt with in accordance with that order.'