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Debabrata Saha v. Serampore Municipality and Others

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 433Decided 1 Sept 2021
Civil Appeal No. 3657 of 2010
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice B.R. Gavai

Background

The appellant bought the ground floor of a two-storey building in Serampore in 2002, with rights including use of the roof. When the first-floor resident (Respondent No. 3) began building on the roof/second floor in 2003 without authorisation, the appellant complained to the municipality. Acting alone, the Municipality's Chairman later cancelled the building sanction, but the municipality took no actual steps to demolish the unauthorised construction despite further writ petitions by the appellant. Respondent No. 3 challenged the cancellation, and the dispute eventually reached the Calcutta High Court through multiple rounds, which held that only the Municipality's full Board of Councilors, not its Chairman acting alone, had the legal power to decide such disputes, and that the appellant's actual rooftop-usage dispute could only be resolved by a civil court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed with the High Court that under Section 217 of the West Bengal Municipal Act, 1996, only the Board of Councilors as a body, not the Chairman individually, had jurisdiction to decide disputes over alleged misrepresentation in a building-plan sanction. Because the Chairman's 2006 order was therefore passed without jurisdiction and was a nullity, the later municipal directions to demolish the construction (which were based on that order) could not survive either. The Court further agreed that the appellant's actual claim, his right under the sale deed to use the shared roof, was a private civil dispute that could only be adjudicated by a civil court, not resolved through municipal proceedings. The appeal was dismissed.

Lesson Learnt

A government or municipal official can only exercise the specific powers given to their office by law, a single office-bearer cannot act on behalf of a body (like a Board or Council) unless the law specifically permits it, and private property disputes between individuals (such as rights over a shared rooftop) generally have to be resolved in a civil court, not by administrative or municipal action.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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