Chapter I PRELIMINARY

-1 1. Short title, extent and commencement:

1. (1) This Act may be called the Mizoram Municipalities Act, 2007.
2. (2) It shall extend to the whole of the State of Mizoram except the area which has been or may hereafter be declared as, or included in, a Panchayat or a Village Council under the Provisions of any law in force in Mizoram, but shall not extend to the Mizoram Tribal Areas, as referred to in PART III of the paragraph 20 of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
3. (3) It shall come into force on such date or dates and in such area or areas as the State Government may, by notification, appoint.

-1 2. Definitions: In this Act, except where the context otherwise requires -

1. (1) "annual valuation" means annual value, and includes determination of annual value where the context so requires;
2. (2) "Assembly Constituency" means the Constituency of the Legislative Assembly of Mizoram;
3. (3) "Bakery or Baking house" means any place where bread, biscuits, confectionary and such other things are baked for the purpose of sale;
4. (4) "budget grant" means the total sum entered on the expenditures side of a budget estimate under a major head and adopted by a Municipality and includes any sum by which such budget grant may be increased or reduced by transfer from or to other heads in accordance with the provisions of this Act and the regulations, rules or by-laws made thereunder;
5. (5) "building" means a house, out-house, stable, latrine, urinal, shed, hut, wall (other than a boundary wall) or any other structure, whether of masonry, bricks, wood, mud, metal or other material but does not include any portable shelter;
6. (6) "building line" means the line up to which the main wall of a building abutting on a street or a projected public street may lawfully extend;
7. (7) "bye-law" means a set of regulations made by a Municipality under this Act;
8. (8) "carriage" means any wheeled vehicle, with springs or other appliances acting as springs, which is used for the conveyance of human beings or goods, and includes any kind of bicycle, tricycle, rickshaw or cycle rickshaw, but does not include a motor vehicle within the meaning of the motor vehicles Act, 1939;
9. (9) "cart" means a vehicle ordinarily drawn by animals and not ordinarily used for conveyance of human beings;
10. (10) "casual vacancy" means a vacancy occurring otherwise than by efflux of time, and "casual election" means an election to fill such casual vacancy;
11. (11) "chairman" means the chairman elected under section 16;
12. (12) "conservancy" means the removal and disposal of sewage, offensive, matter and rubbish;
13. (13) "Constitution" means the Constitution of India.
14. (14) "Company" means a company formed and registered under the Companies Act, 1956 and includes any firm or association carrying on business in the State of Mizoram whether incorporated or not and whether its principal place of business is situated within Mizoram or not;
15. (15) "compound" means land, whether enclosed or not, which is the appurtenance of a building or the common appurtenance of more than one buildings;
16. (16) "councillor" means a person chosen by direct election from a ward of a municipality, and includes a person nominated by the State Government to be a councillor under this Act;
17. (17) "dangerous disease" means -
    • (a) cholera, plague, smallpox, cerebrospinal meningitis, diphtheria, tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza, encephalitis, poliomyelitis and syphilis; and
    • (b) any other epidemic, endemic, or infectious disease which the State Government may, by notification, declare to be a dangerous disease under this Act;
18. (18) "Deputy Commissioner" means the Deputy Commissioner of Civil Administrative District in the State of Mizoram and includes any officer empowered by the State Government to act on his behalf;
19. (19) "district" means a civil administrative district;
20. (20) "District Magistrate" means the District Magistrate referred to in sub-section (1) of section 20 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974);
21. (21) "drain" includes a sewer, a house-drain, a drain of any other description, a tunnel, a culvert, a ditch, a channel and any other device for carrying off sullage, sewage, offensive matter, polluted water, rain-water or sub-soil water;
22. (22) "dwelling house" means a building constructed, used or adapted to be used wholly or principally, for human habitation;
23. (23) "eating house" means a house in which food is sold and served to customers on payment;
24. (24) "electoral roll" means the electoral roll prepared, revised or corrected by the State Election Commission for the purpose of election to a municipality;
25. (25) "Executive Council" means the Executive council of a municipality under clause (b) of section 11;
26. (26) "Executive Officer" means the Executive Officer of a municipality under section 61;
27. (27) "filth" includes sewage, night soil, dung, dirt, putrid and putrefying substance and offensive matter;
28. (28) "food" includes every article used for food or drink by man, other than drugs or water, and any article which ordinarily enters into or is used in the composition or preparation of human food, and also includes confectionery, flavouring and colouring matters, spices and condiments;
29. (29) "Governor" means the Governor of Mizoram;
30. (30) "holding" means land held under one title or agreement and surrounded by one set of boundaries; Provided that where two or more adjoining holdings form part and parcel of the site or premises of a dwelling house, manufactory, warehouse or place of trade or business, such holdings shall be deemed to be one holding for the purpose of the Act; Explanation: Holdings separated by a street or other means of communication shall be deemed to be adjoining within the meaning of this proviso;
31. (31) "house-drain" means any drain of one or more premises used for the drainage of such premises;
32. (32) "house gully" a passage or strip of land constructed, set apart or utilised for the purpose of serving as a drain or of affording access to a privy, urinal cesspool or other receptacle for filth or polluted matter to municipal employees or to persons employed in the cleansing thereof or in the removal of such matter therefrom, and includes the air space above such passage or land;
33. (33) "house" means a building for human occupation whether as a residence or otherwise, having a separate principal entrance from the common way and includes any shop, warehouse or workshop;
34. (34) "hut" means any building constructed principally of wood, mud, leaves, grass or thatch and includes any temporary structure of whatever size, or any small building of whatever material made, which the municipality may declare to be a hut for the purpose of this Act;
35. (35) "infectious disease" means any disease which may be transmitted from one person to another and declared as such by the State Government;
36. (36) "land" includes benefits arising out of land and things attached to the earth;
37. (37) "latrine" includes privy, water closet and urinal;
38. (38) "market" includes any place where persons daily or periodically assemble for the sale of meat, butter, ghee, fish, fruit, vegetable or livestock, or any article of food or any other article for which there is a collection of shops or warehouses or stalls;
39. (39) "masonry building" or "framed building" means any building other than a hut, and includes any structure, a substantial portion of which is made of masonry, reinforced concrete, steel, iron or other metal;
40. (40) "municipal area" means the territorial area of a municipality;
41. (41) "Municipality" means an institution of self government constituted under article 243 Q of the Constitution and under this Act;
42. (42) "notification" means of notification published in the official gazette;
43. (43) "nuisance" includes any act, omission, place or thing which causes or likely to cause injury, danger, annoyance or offence to the sense of sight, smell or hearing or disturbance to rest or sleep, or which is or may be dangerous to life or injurious to health or property;
44. (44) "occupier" means a person for the time being in actual occupation of any land or building whether or not paying or liable to pay rent to the owner of such land or building or a part thereof, and includes an owner living in his own house;
45. (45) "offensive matter" means kitchen or stable refuse, putrid or putrefying substance of any kind;
46. (46) "owner" includes person for the time being receiving the rent of any land or building or of any part thereof, whether on his own account or as agent or trustee for any person or society or for any religious or charitable purpose, or as a receiver who would receive such rent if the land or building or any part thereof were let to a tenant;
47. (47) "Panchayat" means an institution (by whatever name called) of local-self Government constituted under or in the spirit envisaged by Article 243 of the Constitution of India, and includes a village council constituted under the Lushai Hills District (Village Council) Act, 1953 for the purpose of this Act;
48. (48) "platform" means any structure which is placed on or covers or projects over any road or open drain;
49. (49) "Premises" means any land or building or part of a building or any hut or part of a hut, and includes -
    • (a) the garden, ground and out-houses, if any, appertaining thereto; and
    • (b) any fittings or fixture affixed to a building or part of a building or hut or part of a hut for the more beneficial enjoyment thereof;
50. (50) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this Act;
51. (51) "private drain" means a drain constructed and maintained by any person privately or jointly with another person or person for any building, holding or private street;
52. (52) "private street" means any street, road, lane, gully, alley, passage or square which is not a public street as defined in this section, and includes any passage securing access thereto or to more premises belonging to the same or different owners;
53. (53) "public building" means a building constructed or used or adapted to be used -
    • (a) as a place of public worship or as a school, college or other place of instruction (not being a dwelling housed) or as a hospital, nursing house, maternity house, factory, workhouse, public theatre, public cinema, public hall, public library or as a public place of assembly, or
    • (b) as a hotel, eating house, lodging house, home, hostel, refuge or shelter, or
    • (c) for any other public purpose;
54. (54) "public place" means a space not being private property which is open to the use of enjoyment of the public whether the space is vested in a municipality or not;
55. (55) "public road" or "public street" means any street, road, square, court, alley, passage or riding path over which the public have a right of way, whether a thoroughfare or not, and includes - a) the roadway over any public bridge or causeway; b) the footway attached to any such road, public bridge or causeway; and c) the drains attached to any such road, street, bridge or causeway and, where there is no drain attached to any such road or street, shall be deemed to include all land up to the boundary wall, hedge or pillar of any premises abutting on such road or street unless the contrary is shown;
56. (56) "public water courses, springs, wells and tanks" include those used by the public to such an extent as to give a prescriptive right to use;
57. (57) "quorum" for a meeting means one-third of the total number of councillors holding office for the time being;
58. (58) "reconstruction of a building" includes - a) the erection wholly or partially of a building after more than one half of its cubical contents has been taken down or burnt down, or has fallen down, whether at one time or not; b) the re-erection wholly or partially of any building of which an outer wall has been taken down or has burnt down or has fallen down to or within ten feet of the ground adjoining the lowest storey of the building, and of any frame building which has no far been taken down or burnt down or has fallen down as to leave only the framework of the lowest storey; c) the conversion into a dwelling house or a place of public worship of any building not originally constructed for human habitation or for public worship, as the case may be, or the conversion into more than one dwelling houses of a building originally constructed as one dwelling house, of a building originally constructed as one dwelling house only for the conversion of a dwelling-house into a factory; d) the re-conversion into a dwelling-house or place of public worship or a factory or any building which has been discontinued as, or appropriated for any purpose other than a dwelling-house or of a place of public worship or a factory, as the case may be; e) the conversion of one or more huts or temporary structures into a masonry building; and f) the extension of a building;
59. (59) "regulation" means a regulation made by a Municipality under this Act;
60. (60) "road alignment or street alignment" means a line dividing the lands comprised in and forming part of a road or street from the adjoining land;
61. (61) "rubbish" means dust, ashes, broken bricks, mortar, broken glass and refuse of any kind other than filth;
62. (62) "rules" means the rules made by the State Government under this Act;
63. (63) "scavenger" means a person employed in collecting or removing filth, in cleansing drains or slaughter houses or in driving carts used for the removed of filth;
64. (64) "sewage" means night soil and other contents of privies, urinals, cesspools or drains, and includes trade effluents and discharges from manufactories of all kinds;
65. (65) "slaughter house" means any place used for the slaughter of cattle, sheep, goats, kids or pigs or other eatable animals for the purpose of selling the flesh thereof as meat;
66. (66) "State Government" means the Government of the State of Mizoram;
67. (67) "State, Election Commission" means the State Election Commission of Mizoram as contemplated in Article 243-ZA of the Constitution;
68. (68) "State Finance Commission" means the State Finance Commission of Mizoram constituted by the Governor under Article 243-Y of the Constitution;
69. (69) "street" means a public or private street;
70. (70) "sub-divisional Magistrate" means the Sub-divisional Magistrate referred to in sub-section (4) of section 20 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974);
71. (71) "village council" means a village council constituted under the Lushai Hills District (Village Council) Act, 1953 as adapted and amended;
72. (72) "ward" means an administrative division of a municipality;
73. (73) "water course" includes any river, stream, channel or nullah, whether natural or artificial;
74. (74) "year" means the financial year beginning on the first day of April.