GURNAM SINGH Vs. MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a second appeal by Gurnam Singh whose suit, which was decreed by the trial court, has been dismissed by the learned District Judge, Patiala. The suit was against the Patiala Municipal Committee for a declaration that the site on which the disputed structures stood was his property and for an injunction restraining the Defendant from demolishing it pursuant to its notice under Section 172 of the Municipal Act. Gurnam Singh had through an unregistered document Ex. P.A. dated 3 -5 -1996 purchased a house in Patiala from Mst. Partapi. The boundaries and dimensions and other particulars of the house are given in the said deed of sale. The house had a vacant site lying in front of it and the proprietary title to that site was claimed by the Plaintiff to belong to him in his suit. On the site stood a latrine and a bath room which the Municipal Committee has required the Plaintiff to remove as they constitute unauthorised encroachment on a street.

(2.) NEXT comes the other issue. It is contended that the Plaintiff had applied for permission to reconstruct his bath room on the disputed site on 18 -4 -2004 and the Municipal' Committee did not inform him of their decision till 9 -5 -2005 when it sent its first notice S. Amar Singh stressing his argument referred. to Section 193 of the Municipal Act and urged that since the Municipal Committee had failed to convey sanction within sixty days of the application, the Plaintiff according to Sub -section 4 of Section 193 could carry out the proposed construction and in that case the Municipal Committee should be deemed to have accorded permission impliedly. The learned Counsel has also urged that, since the construction was made under implied consent of the Municipal Committee in the above mentioned circumstances, the Plaintiff cannot be said to have built or encroached without the consent of the defendant.