BAI BASANTIBAI Vs. MUNICIPAL COMMISSIONER OF BOMBAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition presented Under Section 45, Specific Relief Act, asking that a rule may issue to the Municipal Commissioner to show cause why he should not be directed to refuse sanction to an application made by Gordhandas Chunilal, whom I will refer to as "the building owner," for passing the plans for an addition to the height of his building, and that the Municipal Commissioner may be restrained from giving his sanction.

(2.) The matter arises in this way. The petitioner is the owner of a certain property in Bombay which adjoins the property of the building owner, and the building owner is proposing to increase the height of his building. The building owner's property, it is alleged, has two frontages, one on a narrower road and another on a broader road, and the substantial question in dispute is whether the height of the building should be limited Under Section 349- B, City of Bombay Municipal Act, by the width of the wider road or of the narrower road. The building owner submitted a plan of his proposed additional building Under Section 342, City of Bombay Municipal Act; and the effect of that is, that Under Section 345, if within 30 days after the receipt of the notice the Commissioner fails to intimate in writing to the person, who has given the said notice his disapproval of the building which is proposed or if within the said period the Commissioner signifies in writing to the said person his approval of the said building, then the building owner may proceed with the building in accordance with his intention as described in the notice "but not so as to contravene any of the provisions of the Act." Then Section 349-B is a section dealing with the height of the buildings, and it provides that subject to the maximum prescribed by Section 349 A, the height to which a building may be erected or raised shall be regulated by the width of the street on which it abuts.

(3.) And then there are various provisions for carrying that out. So that you have got a statutory provision that the height of the building is to be regulated by the width of the street on which it abuts.