Madan Gopal Ch. Rudra Paul vs State Of Tripura And Ors

The petitioner is owner of a land bearing Old Plot Nos.854 & 855 and Hal Plot Nos.965 & 966 of village, Mouja and Tehsil - Khowai. The land contains an old building which the petitioner uses for his residential purpose. Petitioner wanted to extend the construction on his land for which he had applied to the Municipal authorities along with building plan for granting permission to construct on 3rd August, 2018. Case of the petitioner is that the authorities neither accepted nor rejected the application and therefore, in terms of Section 125(3) of the Tripura Municipal Act, 1994 ('the Act' for short), such building plans would be deemed to have been sanctioned. Relying on such deemed permission, the petitioner commenced the construction sometime in May, 2018. On 1st July, 2019 the petitioner was served with a notice for demolition. Since, according to the Executive Engineer of Khowai Municipal Council, the construction was in violation of Rule 31 of the Tripura Building Rules, 2017 he was given 7 days to demolish the illegal structure and that is why this petition has been filed.

The case of the respondent is that the application for further construction was incomplete. Important columns in the printed application form were not filled up. The authorities, therefore, could not take the said application into consideration. Since the petitioner had started construction without permission, notice of demolition was issued.

When the respondents point out that when the petitioner's application for new construction was incomplete, the question of deeming clause contained in Sub-Section (3) of Section 125 of the Act would not arise. However, since the petitioner, bona fide acting under such deemed permission, has commenced the construction, appropriate order needs to be passed.

In facts of the present case, therefore, it would be appropriate to allow the petitioner to make a complete fresh application for carrying out additional construction which the authorities would decide promptly and till then neither the petitioner would carry on further construction nor the respondents would insist on demolition.

The petition is, therefore, disposed of with following directions:

(1) It would be open for the petitioner to file a fresh application for additional construction within a period of 2(two) weeks from today.

(2) If such an application is filed within the time permitted, the respondents shall decide the application within 60(sixty) days of the receipt of the application.

(3) If such application is granted, the petitioner would carry on further construction in terms of such permission. In other words, if the existing additional construction already carried out by the petitioner is in tune with the permission granted by the Municipality, the same would not be disturbed. To the extent the existing construction is in conflict with the permission granted by the Municipality, the petitioner would have a liability to remove the same.

(4) Till such application is decided and if decided against the petitioner, subject to his right of appeal, neither the petitioner will carry on further construction nor the respondent shall insist on its demotion. In other words, both sides shall maintain status quo with respect to such additional construction as on today.

Pending application(s), if any, also stands disposed of.