EMPEROR Vs. RAMRAO ABAJI PRABHU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by Government against an order of the Third Class Magistrate dismissing the complaint of the Mai wan Municipality brought against the accused in the following circumstances. The accused is the owner of a building within the Municipal limits. He wanted to erect a stone-wall to his compound at a distance of thirty-feet from the house. He commenced to erect the wall without giving notice under Section 96 of the Bombay District Municipal Act III of 1907, whereupon he was served with notice to stop the construction of his wall until he had obtained permission. The accused, however, paid no attention to the notice, but finished the wall in contravention of the orders of the Municipality in consequence of which the Municipality accorded its sanction for the prosecution of the accused for failing to give notice and directed the Municipal Inspector to lodge a complaint against him under Section 96, Clause (5), of the Act.

(2.) The question is, therefore, whether the accused was entitled to build his compound wall without giving notice under Section 96. If the "compound wall" comes within the definition of building , then clearly the accused was altering externally or adding to the existing building by building the compound wall. Now the definition of building in Section 8(7) is as follows:- Building shall include any hut, shed, or other enclosure, whether used as a human dwelling or otherwise, and shall I include also walls, verandahs, fixed plat-forms, plinths, door-steps land the like.

(3.) Ordinarily speaking a building cannot exist without walls. Therefore there would be no necessity in the definition of the word building- to mention that it included walls unless it was intended to include other walls in addition to these walls without which the -building- could not esits.