State Act

The Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act.

438. 7[State] Government may direct the closing of any place for the disposal of the dead.— (1) If, from information furnished by competent person and after personal inspection, the Commissioner shall at any time be of opinion— (a) that any place of public worship is or is likely to become injurious to health by reason of the state of the vaults or graves within the walls of or underneath the same, or in any church-yard or burial ground adjacent thereto, or (b) that any other place used for the disposal of the dead is in such a state as to be or to be likely to become injurious to health, he may submit his said opinion, with the reasons therefor, to the corporation, who shall forward the same with their opinion, for the consideration of the 1[2[State] Government]. (2) Upon receipt of such opinions, the 3[4[State] Government], after such further inquiry, if any, as 5[it] shall deem fit to cause to be made, may, by notification published in the 6[Official Gazette] and in the local newspapers, direct that such place of public worship or other place for the disposal of the dead be no longer used for the disposal of the dead. Every order so made shall be noted in the register kept under section 435. (3) On the expiration of two months from the date of any such order of the 7[8[State] Government], the place to which the same relates shall be closed for the disposal of the dead. (4) A copy of the said notification, with a translation thereof, in the Marathi, Gujarati, 9[Hindi] and Urdu languages, shall be affixed on a conspicuous spot on or near the place to which the same relates, unless such place be a place of public worship.