"The cessation of financial and administrative powers of an elected head of a municipality is a matter of significance and is replete with serious consequences. The effect of the financial and administrative powers, functions and duties being ceased, has a direct impact upon the authority of the elected head. It erodes authority and impacts upon the ability of the President to effectively discharge the functions of the office by preventing the discharge of financial and administrative authority. Bereft of financial and administrative powers, functions and duties, the office of the President of a municipality is reduced to a cipher. In fact, the proviso envisages that upon the powers being ceased, they shall be exercised by the District Magistrate or an officer nominated, not below the rank of a Deputy Collector. This consequence is serious enough to warrant the Court to read a compliance with the principles of natural justice into the provision so as to ensure a fair procedure and safeguard against an unfair recourse to its power by the State Government. The principles of natural justice, as we have noted above, are required to be observed as a matter of first principle when a decision - administrative, quas-judicial or judicial - adversely affects the rights of parties. The principle of reading into the statutory provision a requirement of complying with the principles of natural justice is a mandate of Article 14 because it would be an anathema to a fair procedure for the State Government to issue dictats that abrogate the financial and administrative powers of an elected head of a local self-governing institution without complying with the principles of natural justice. The requirement of observing the principles of natural justice, as a matter of first principle, must be weighed in together with the additional factors present in the proviso to Section 48(2) that
