BRAHAT NAGAR PALIKA PARISHAD RATLAM Vs. ABDUL RAHMAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal on leave from the acquittal by the learned Additional District Magistrate of the respondent under S. 112 (7) of the M. B. Municipalities Act, 1954 for the alleged making on the wall of his house, an external alteration by opening a door without permission of the municipality. The learned Magistrate has acquitted the respondent on the ground that the opening of the door is not an external alteration and that simply because the Panchas of a Masjid have their own differences with the respondent in regard to the land on which the door opens, the Municipality cannot take action under S. 112 of the Act.

(2.) THE entire controversy centres round whether the opening of a door in a wall that gives out on land other than public land is an external alteration, and secondly, whether that section can be invoked by the Municipality where there is a claim by another private individual and not by it self to the land on which such door opens.

(3.) 1960 JLJ 671. There it was held that section 112 is wider than S. 108 and further that the Municipality is competent to control the budding by an owner on his own land. But it is difficult to see what bearing it has on whether a particular alteration is internal or external. Similarly in Engineer and Land Acquisition Officer Vs. Hakimuddin, 1961 JLJ 1448, the question was whether a gallary, or a spread of cement slab with bars around it, was unauthorised construction or not. That too is not the position here.