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2. The plaintiff being owner of the houses on each side of the passage of a khidki containing three or four other houses, proposed to build across the passage at such a height as not to interfere with the passage of those entitled to go to and fro. The municipal commissioners forbade the work, as calculated to interfere with the access of light and air to the houses inside the khidki. It is now contended that the commissioners had no right to interfere or to refuse permission to build on such a ground as this. The protection of the rights of the neighbouring householders ought, it is urged, to have been left to the householders themselves. The section, however, (Section 33 of Bombay Act VI of 1873) under which the permission of the commissioners was sought and refused, is, as the Assistant Judge has pointed out, perfectly general in its terms. It does not follow that the commissioners could, therefore, exercise the authority thus given to them in a capricious, wanton, and oppressive manner Public authorities even acting within the defined limits of their powers must not conduct themselves arbitrarily or tyrannically (see Leader v. Moxon 2 W. B1., 924 approved by Gibbs, C.J., in Sutton v. Clarke 6 Taunt. at p. 43. But the case last cited shows that public functionaries, acting within the limits prescribed by the statute which gives them authority, are not subject to a suit for thus discharging their duties according to their judgment. A public body must keep within its powers, and must use them considerately (see per Lord Blackburn in Geddis v. Proprietors of Bann Reservoir L.R., 3 App. Ca. at p. 455, but so acting it is safe-Dixon v. The Metropolitan Board of Works L.R., 7 Q.B. Div., 418). There is a further principle of great importance laid down by Lord Selborne, L.C., in Clark v. School Board for London L.R., 9 Ch. App. Ca., 122. His Lordship says: "It seems to me that the Legislature, in authorizing the School Board, for important public purposes, to exercise these large powers... meant to give them a discretion suitable to the nature and importance of the duties to be discharged by them." The late Sir G. Jessel, M.R., citing this dictum in Duke of Bedford v. Dawson L.R., 20 Eq. Ca., at p. 358 adds that "the public body... are to be the judges, subject to this, that if they are manifestly abusing their powers... the Court will say it is not a fair and honest judgment, and will not allow it." These cases define with clearness what discretion a public body may use and at what point the interference of the Courts is justifiable. In the present case, the Courts below have found that the order of the commissioners was not an unreasonable one. That is a question of fact rather than of law; but we concur in the view taken by the Courts below, and we do not think that the authority of the commissioners was in any way affected by the circumstance that the proposed erection might be an encroachment on private rights subjecting the plaintiff to an action by the persons injured.