Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Amal Samanta vs The State Of West Bengal And Others on 3 March, 2017
1
03.03.2017.
Item No. 7
W.P. 14011(W) of 2016
Amal Samanta
Vs.
The State of West Bengal and others.
Mr. Sakti Pada Jana,
Mr. S. K. Khan,
Mr. Haradhan Das.
... for the petitioner.
Mr. Yasin Ali,
Mrs. Tapati Samanta.
... for the State.
Mr. Swarup Kumar Ghosh.
... for the respondent nos. 4, 5, & 6.
The petitioner applied for sanction of plan with the Ghatal Municipality for construction of a residential building on 3rd July 2015. The Municipality did not respond to such application despite the statutory period provided under Section 207 of the West Bengal Municipal Act, 1993 (hereinafter referred to as 'said Act').
The said section provides that the Board of Councilors shall by written order, either accord sanction of building plan conditionally or unconditionally and give permission to execute the work or refuse to accord such sanction or may accord sanction by imposing conditions for compliance before permission to execute the work within sixty days from the date of receipt of any application in this regard or any information or documents, which the said Councilors required to be furnished by the applicant.
Section 208 of the said Act provides remedy to such applicant in the event the Board of Councilors do not take any decision within the time frame indicated in Section 207 of the said Act to prefer an appeal before the Municipality and the said Municipality is also under statutory obligation to dispose of the same within thirty days from the date of such appeal.
2The significant feature, which can be seen from Section 208 of the said Act, is that in the event the appeal is not disposed of within the stipulated time, the applicant may proceed with execution of work and sanction would be deemed to have been granted to the petitioner.
Admittedly, the appeal was filed on 3rd July 2016. There is no difficulty in saying that there is no prescribed period for preferring an appeal under Section 208 of the said Act. What is required under the aforesaid provision is that such appeal must be disposed of within thirty days from the date of such appeal, otherwise by virtue of a deeming provision the sanction would automatically be deemed to have been granted and the applicant may proceed with the execution of work provided it does not contravene to any other provisions relating to sanction of plan and the conditions imposed thereon.
The attention of this Court is drawn to a letter of the Chairman, Ghatal Municipality issued on 29th July 2016, whereby and whereunder it is indicated that the demolition of the building shall stand put off till the disposal of the matter in the High Court.
The learned advocate for the petitioner tried to convince this Court that the order of demolition cannot be passed by the Sub- Divisional Officer, Ghatal, Paschim Medinipur and he is not the authorized person under the Act to pass such order.
It reveals from the order passed by the Division Bench in WP 26069(W) of 2015, which is annexed as Annexure-P3 to the writ petition, in a Public Interest Litigation, wherein the Division Bench directed the Sub-Divisional Officer, Ghatal, Paschim Medinipur to enquire into the representation filed by the writ petitioners therein and to proceed with the necessary direction to stop the construction of building, if found to be illegal/unauthorized, shall direct the demolition thereof.
Once the Division Bench has directed the Sub-Divisional Officer, Ghatal, Paschim Medinipur to enquire into the matter and to pass an order for demolition, it does not appear to this Court that the order of the Sub-Divisional Officer in compliance of the 3 order of the Division Bench can be impinged on the provisions of the Act.
Admittedly, there is no sanction of plan by the competent authority as on this date. Even the appeal under Section 208 of the said Act is pending. However, within the statutory period of time the Chairman has put on hold the demolition and, therefore, it cannot be said that the deeming provisions under Section 208 of the said Act is automatically attracted.
This Court, therefore, does not intend to interfere with the order of demolition passed by the Sub-Divisional Officer acting in terms of the order of the Division Bench passed in Public Interest Litigation.
However, this Court feels that the authority cannot keep the appeal in abeyance for all time to come. This Court, therefore, directs the Board of Councilors, Ghatal Municipality to take a decision on sanction of plan within four weeks from the date of communication of this order in accordance with law.
This order shall not be construed to have any impact on the order of the Sub-Divisional Officer passed in terms of the order of the Division Bench and the said authority is free to proceed in accordance with law.
The writ petition is, thus, disposed of.
There shall, however, be no order as to costs.
ab (Harish Tandon, J.)