A municipal body governs less by statute than by the dense undergrowth of subordinate legislation it makes for itself — rules, regulations and bye-laws that fix water rates, regulate hawkers, prescribe building lines and police a thousand civic details. Chapter XXI of the New Delhi Municipal Council Act, 1994 (sections 386 to 392) is where the Act hands out this delegated power, and just as carefully fences it. The chapter answers four questions that recur in every judiciary and CLAT-PG paper on local self-government: who may make each species of subordinate law, by what procedure, subject to whose control, and at what point a court will strike it down as ultra vires. The answers matter because the NDMC's own bye-laws have been judicially demolished — most famously in 2019, when the Supreme Court held its property-tax bye-laws void for travelling beyond the parent section. This chapter maps the machinery; for the institution that wields it see Constitution and Powers of the Council, and for the vocabulary that runs through it see Definitions.
Rules, regulations and bye-laws: three species, three masters
The Act is deliberately careful to keep three categories of subordinate legislation distinct, and the distinction is the single most examined point in this chapter. Rules are made by the Central Government; regulations govern the internal working of the Council and (after an initial Central spell) are made by the Council itself; and bye-laws are the externally-binding civic law the Council makes for the inhabitants of New Delhi. The hierarchy is not merely formal. A rule, being the product of the superior delegate, prevails over a regulation or bye-law inconsistent with it, and every one of the three must conform to the parent Act, which itself is subordinate to the Constitution.
The Supreme Court explained this layered architecture in St. Johns Teachers Training Institute v. Regional Director, NCTE, (2003) 3 SCC 321, observing that regulations and bye-laws are made to fill in detail, to carry the statute into operation, and to deal with the variations and difficulties that legislation by a plenary body cannot anticipate — but they remain subordinate, drawing their entire life from the enabling Act and dying the moment they exceed it. That description fits the NDMC scheme precisely: sections 386, 387 and 388 each begin with the words “Subject to the provisions of this Act” or their equivalent, so the parent statute is the ceiling on all three. For how these instruments are debated and adopted within the Council, see Conduct of Business and Committees.
Rules — the Central Government's instrument (s. 386)
The power to make rules under the Act vests in the Central Government. Section 386 is a supplemental provision: it supplies the common machinery for every rule-making power conferred elsewhere in the Act rather than itself listing the topics. Two features are worth committing to memory. First, a rule may attach a penalty for its contravention, but the Act caps that penalty — a breach of a rule may be visited with fine which may extend to one hundred rupees. Second, every rule must run the gauntlet of parliamentary control under section 389: it is to be laid before each House of Parliament for a total period of thirty days, and Parliament may modify or annul it, subject to a saving clause that protects anything already lawfully done.
The constitutional logic of confining the heaviest rule-making power to the Central Government, with parliamentary supervision attached, is the familiar one that the more a delegate's product resembles primary legislation, the tighter the leash must be. The principle that subordinate legislation, however framed, must keep within the four corners of the enabling power was reaffirmed in State of Tamil Nadu v. Hind Stone, (1981) 2 SCC 205 : AIR 1981 SC 711, where the Court upheld a State rule reserving granite quarrying to public corporations precisely because it advanced, and did not contradict, the policy of the parent Act. Rules under the NDMC Act enjoy the same presumption of validity so long as they stay within their statutory mandate.
Regulations — the Council's internal code (s. 387)
Regulations occupy the middle tier. Section 387 contemplates a transitional arrangement: because a freshly-constituted Council cannot draft its own working code overnight, the Central Government may make the regulations within one year of the establishment of the Council, after which the Council may alter or rescind them. Crucially, a regulation made by the Council does not take effect on its own say-so — the section provides that no regulation made by the Council shall have effect until it has been approved by the Central Government and published in the Official Gazette. Regulations thus typically govern matters such as the conduct of meetings, committees, the discipline and conditions of service of staff, and other essentially internal concerns; the substantive service framework is taken up in Officers and Employees.
The two-stage requirement — Central approval plus Gazette publication — is a condition precedent, not a formality. A regulation purporting to operate before approval and publication is simply inoperative. This mirrors the orthodox position that where a statute prescribes the manner in which a subordinate law shall come into force, that manner must be strictly followed, a proposition the Supreme Court has applied repeatedly to delegated legislation since Dr. Indramani Pyarelal Gupta v. W.R. Nathu, AIR 1963 SC 274, where a bye-law of the East India Cotton Association was tested against the precise limits of the delegated power and the Court held the delegate could not, absent express authority, give its subordinate law retrospective effect.
Bye-laws — the Council's outward-facing power (s. 388)
Section 388 is the heart of the chapter and the provision most likely to be quoted in an answer. It opens with the formula that the Council may, in addition to any bye-laws which it is empowered to make by any other provision of this Act, make bye-laws to provide for the matters enumerated, grouped under lettered heads. The enumerated subjects span the entire reach of municipal administration: (A) taxation — the maintenance of tax records, the form of returns, vehicle badges and the manner of collection; (B) water supply, drainage and sewerage, including the standard of pipes and the discharge of trade effluent; (C) supply of electricity and sub-stations in New Delhi; (D) streets — their closure, repair, hoardings during construction, regulation of hawkers and lighting; (E) sanitation and public health — latrines, prevention of disease, control of animals and vaccination; (F) vital statistics — the registration of births, deaths and marriages; (G) nuisances; (H) markets, slaughter-houses and trades; (I) improvement and re-housing schemes; and (J) a residuary head covering education, dispensaries, licences and other matters of municipal governance.
Like regulations, the initial bye-laws could be made by the Central Government within one year of the Council's establishment, with the Council free to modify them thereafter. But the breadth of section 388 is deceptive: a bye-law is valid only if it can be located within one of these heads and is consistent with the substantive scheme of the Act. The leading illustration is the property-tax litigation discussed below, where the NDMC's reliance on the residuary head (J) to import an entirely new method of valuation was rejected. The lettered structure of section 388 is therefore not decorative — it is the map within which every bye-law must find its home. For the substantive levy that several of these bye-laws service, see Property Tax: Levy, Assessment and Recovery.
Procedure: previous publication and Central approval (s. 391)
A bye-law is not born the moment the Council resolves on it. Section 391, the supplemental provision for bye-laws, prescribes a procedure with three indispensable stages. First, previous publication: the draft bye-law, with the prior approval of the Council, is published for the information of persons likely to be affected, and a date is fixed before which any person may submit objections or suggestions in writing to the Secretary. This is the consultative limb — it gives the affected public a hearing before, not after, the law binds them. Second, Central Government approval: a bye-law made by the Council does not take effect until the Central Government has approved it. Third, publication in the Official Gazette, after which it carries the force of law.
Each stage is a condition of validity. Omission of previous publication, where the Act requires it, is a recognised ground for striking a bye-law down, because the requirement is treated as mandatory rather than directory wherever the statute makes consultation the price of the delegated power. The section also preserves a continuing Central supervisory power — the Government may modify an approved bye-law, or cancel it after giving public notice — so the leash does not slacken once the bye-law is in force. Where, by contrast, an emergency or the public interest demands immediate action, statutes commonly permit previous publication to be dispensed with; the validity of any such shortcut turns on the precise words the Act uses, which is why candidates should reproduce section 391's language rather than paraphrase it loosely.
Penalties for breach of bye-laws (s. 390)
A bye-law without a sanction would be an exhortation, not law. Section 390 supplies the sanction. The general penalty for contravention of a bye-law is fine which may extend to five hundred rupees; where the breach is a continuing one, a further fine which may extend to twenty rupees for every day during which the offence continues after conviction may be imposed; and a like daily penalty may follow where the offender persists after receiving notice from the Council. For the graver category of contraventions connected with road transport, the Act provides for imprisonment which may extend to three months or fine which may extend to one thousand five hundred rupees, or both. In addition to punishing the offender, the section empowers the court to require that any mischief caused by the breach be remedied — a restitutionary dimension that distinguishes municipal penal provisions from ordinary fines.
The monetary figures look quaint by modern standards, but their structure — a base fine, a daily continuing fine, and a heavier scale for specified serious breaches — is the standard municipal template and is frequently tested. The point of doctrinal substance is that a penalty can be exacted only for breach of a validly made bye-law: if the bye-law itself is ultra vires, no prosecution under section 390 can stand, because there is in law nothing to contravene.
Parliamentary and public control (ss. 389 and 392)
Two final sections complete the control machinery. Section 389 subjects regulations and bye-laws (and, read with section 386, rules) to parliamentary control: every such instrument is to be laid before each House of Parliament for a total period of thirty days, which may be comprised in one session or in two or more successive sessions, and either House may agree to modify or annul it. The familiar saving applies — any modification or annulment operates prospectively and does not invalidate anything previously done under the instrument. This is the standard “laying with negative resolution” procedure, the principal legislative check on delegated legislation in the Indian system.
Section 392 supplies the public-access check. The Council must keep a copy of every bye-law at its municipal office, available for inspection by any person free of charge during office hours, and must sell copies to the public at a reasonable price, whether of a single bye-law or of the whole body of them. The provision reflects the elementary rule-of-law principle that subordinate law which binds the public must be accessible to the public. Together, sections 389 and 392 illustrate the two directions of control over delegated legislation — upward, to Parliament, and outward, to the citizen — a theme developed further in the Introduction to this Act.
The ultra vires doctrine: the court's red line
The most heavily litigated question in this chapter is when a court will declare a rule, regulation or bye-law void. The governing doctrine is ultra vires: subordinate legislation is invalid if it exceeds the authority conferred by the parent Act (substantive ultra vires) or is made without observing a mandatory procedural requirement such as previous publication (procedural ultra vires). The classic Indian statement of the grounds appears in Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) (P) Ltd. v. Union of India, (1985) 1 SCC 641, where the Supreme Court held that delegated legislation may be challenged on the ground that it does not conform to the statute under which it is made, that it is contrary to some other statute, or that it is so manifestly arbitrary as to fall foul of Article 14 — arbitrariness in India being absorbed into the equality guarantee rather than standing as a free-floating ground.
The point that delegated legislation which is ultra vires the parent Act can be given no effect whatever is one the courts have restated consistently; a void bye-law is void from inception and cannot be cured by long usage or by the citizen's acquiescence. This is why, in the NDMC property-tax litigation, the fact that the impugned bye-laws had been operated for years did not save them — though, as we shall see, the Court used its equitable discretion to avoid reopening past assessments.
The 2019 property-tax bye-laws case
The single most important modern authority on the NDMC's bye-law power is New Delhi Municipal Council v. Association of Concerned Citizens of New Delhi, 2019 SCC OnLine SC 60 : AIR 2019 SC 1718, decided on 22 January 2019 by a Bench of A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, JJ. At issue were the New Delhi Municipal Council (Determination of Annual Rent) Bye-laws, 2009, which had introduced the Unit Area Method (UAM) for fixing the rateable value of properties for property-tax purposes. The Delhi High Court had struck them down, and the Supreme Court affirmed.
The reasoning is a textbook application of substantive ultra vires. Section 63 of the NDMC Act defines the rateable value by reference to the annual rent at which a land or building might reasonably be expected to be let from year to year — the long-established “reasonable letting value” standard. The Unit Area Method, by contrast, computes value from the physical characteristics and area of the property, an “annual value” concept fundamentally foreign to the letting-value test that the parent section commands. The NDMC could not, the Court held, use the residuary bye-law head in section 388 to smuggle in a basis of valuation that the substantive charging provision did not authorise. Because the bye-laws contradicted section 63, they were ultra vires the Act and void. The case is the perfect vehicle for the proposition that a bye-law, however broadly the enumerating section is worded, can never override or rewrite the substantive scheme of the statute — a principle anticipated decades earlier in Dr. Indramani Pyarelal Gupta v. W.R. Nathu, AIR 1963 SC 274.
The reasonableness test for bye-laws
Beyond conformity with the parent Act, bye-laws made by an elected local authority are subject to a distinctive standard of reasonableness inherited from English law. The fountainhead is Kruse v. Johnson, [1898] 2 QB 91, where Lord Russell of Killowen C.J. laid down that bye-laws of a representative body should be “benevolently” interpreted and supported if possible, because they are made by persons answerable to those they govern; but that a bye-law may be struck down as unreasonable, and therefore ultra vires, if it is partial and unequal in its operation as between different classes, manifestly unjust, made in bad faith, or so oppressive or gratuitous in its interference with rights that no reasonable person could justify it.
Indian courts have absorbed this standard, refracted through Article 14. A bye-law of an Indian municipal or local body is thus vulnerable on two reasonableness fronts: that it is so arbitrary or discriminatory as to violate the equality guarantee, and that it is, in the Kruse v. Johnson sense, manifestly unjust or oppressive. The benevolent presumption nonetheless remains the starting point — a court leans toward upholding the bye-law of a representative council where a reasonable construction permits, reserving invalidation for the clear case.
A bye-law cannot override a statutory right
A recurring application of the ultra vires principle is that a bye-law cannot curtail or override a right conferred by primary legislation. Where a Council's bye-law would have the effect of taking away, abridging or burdening a statutory right, the bye-law must yield, because the subordinate instrument cannot rise above its source. This is the corollary of the hierarchy set out at the start of this chapter: a bye-law is valid only to the extent it is consistent with the parent Act, and necessarily invalid to the extent it conflicts with any statute, whether the enabling Act or another.
The proposition was central to Dr. Indramani Pyarelal Gupta v. W.R. Nathu, AIR 1963 SC 274, where the Supreme Court tested an amended association bye-law against the boundaries of the delegated power and confirmed that a bye-law cannot impose conditions that contradict the rights the statute confers, nor (absent express authority) operate retrospectively. Applied to the NDMC, the lesson is direct: a bye-law made under section 388 cannot defeat the substantive provisions on taxation, water supply or any other subject that the Act itself governs — it may only fill in the detail of administration within the contours the Act has already drawn.
Bye-laws distinguished from administrative orders and notifications
Candidates frequently conflate a bye-law with an ordinary administrative direction, but the distinction carries legal consequences. A bye-law is legislative in character: it is a rule of general application, prospectively binding on an indefinite class of persons, made under an express statutory power and (under the NDMC Act) requiring previous publication, Central approval and Gazette publication before it operates. An administrative order or notification, by contrast, is typically particular, may be issued without the legislative procedure, and binds only its addressees. Because a bye-law is legislative, it attracts the full apparatus of judicial review of delegated legislation — the ultra vires doctrine, the reasonableness test, and the requirement of strict procedural compliance — whereas an administrative order is reviewed on the narrower grounds applicable to executive action.
The practical importance surfaces whenever the Council acts. If a measure is genuinely a bye-law, it cannot take effect until the section 391 procedure is complete and it can be challenged for travelling beyond section 388; if it is merely an administrative direction dressed up as something more, it cannot create binding civic obligations of the kind only a validly made bye-law can. Identifying the true legal character of the Council's act is therefore the first analytical step in any problem on this chapter. The institutional source of these powers is examined in Constitution and Powers of the Council, and the hub for the whole Act is the NDMC Act notes index.
How this chapter is examined
For Delhi Judicial Service and CLAT-PG purposes, three patterns recur. First, the distinction question — “Distinguish between rules, regulations and bye-laws under the NDMC Act” — answered by pairing the maker (Central Government / Council / Council), the authority (ss. 386 / 387 / 388) and the coming-into-force conditions (laying before Parliament; Central approval and Gazette publication; previous publication, approval and Gazette publication). Second, the procedure question on how a bye-law is made and brought into force, answered through the three stages of section 391 and the controls in sections 389 and 392. Third, and most valuable, the problem question in which a bye-law is attacked: here the structured answer runs through substantive ultra vires (does it fit within a head of section 388 and conform to the substantive Act?), procedural ultra vires (was previous publication and approval observed?), and reasonableness (Kruse v. Johnson as filtered through Article 14).
Anchor the substantive limb with New Delhi Municipal Council v. Association of Concerned Citizens of New Delhi, AIR 2019 SC 1718, the grounds of review with Indian Express Newspapers v. Union of India, (1985) 1 SCC 641, the conformity-with-policy point with State of Tamil Nadu v. Hind Stone, (1981) 2 SCC 205, and the proposition that a bye-law cannot override statute or operate retrospectively with Dr. Indramani Pyarelal Gupta v. W.R. Nathu, AIR 1963 SC 274. The illustration that a bye-law forbidding a lawful trade can be struck down for exceeding the parent power comes from Tahir Hussain v. District Board, Muzaffarnagar, AIR 1954 SC 630, where a blanket ban on running a cattle market was held ultra vires the District Board's bye-law power. Cite the bare sections accurately and the doctrine carries itself.
Frequently asked questions
Who makes rules, regulations and bye-laws under the NDMC Act, 1994?
Rules are made by the Central Government (s. 386). Regulations may be made initially by the Central Government within one year of the Council's establishment, after which the Council may alter or rescind them, but a regulation made by the Council takes effect only after Central Government approval and Gazette publication (s. 387). Bye-laws are made by the Council under s. 388 (with an initial Central power), subject to previous publication, Central approval and Gazette publication under s. 391.
What is the procedure for making a bye-law under section 391?
There are three indispensable stages: previous publication of the draft for the information of persons likely to be affected, with a date fixed for objections and suggestions to the Secretary; approval by the Central Government; and publication in the Official Gazette, after which the bye-law has the force of law. The Central Government also retains a continuing power to modify an approved bye-law or to cancel it after public notice.
Why were the NDMC's 2009 property-tax bye-laws struck down?
In New Delhi Municipal Council v. Association of Concerned Citizens of New Delhi, AIR 2019 SC 1718 (2019 SCC OnLine SC 60), the Supreme Court held the NDMC (Determination of Annual Rent) Bye-laws, 2009 ultra vires because they introduced the Unit Area Method of valuation, which is foreign to the reasonable-letting-value standard mandated by s. 63 of the Act. A bye-law cannot rewrite the substantive charging provision of the parent statute.
On what grounds can a bye-law be declared ultra vires?
On substantive grounds — that it exceeds the power conferred by the parent Act or conflicts with a statute — and on procedural grounds, such as failure to observe mandatory previous publication or approval. Under Indian Express Newspapers v. Union of India, (1985) 1 SCC 641, delegated legislation may also be struck down if so manifestly arbitrary as to violate Article 14. A bye-law of a representative body may additionally be void for unreasonableness under Kruse v. Johnson, [1898] 2 QB 91.
Can a bye-law override a right conferred by the parent Act?
No. A bye-law is subordinate to the statute that creates the power to make it and must yield wherever it conflicts. Dr. Indramani Pyarelal Gupta v. W.R. Nathu, AIR 1963 SC 274, confirms that a bye-law cannot impose conditions contradicting statutory rights and cannot operate retrospectively unless the parent Act expressly so authorises.
What is the penalty for breaching a bye-law under section 390?
The general penalty is a fine extending to five hundred rupees, with a continuing daily fine extending to twenty rupees for each day the offence continues after conviction (and a like daily penalty after notice from the Council). Breaches connected with road transport carry imprisonment up to three months or fine up to one thousand five hundred rupees, or both. The court may also order that any mischief caused be remedied. A penalty lies only for breach of a validly made bye-law.