Judgment

UNTWALIA, J.:- These five Civil appeals and the two Criminal appeals have been heard together and are being disposed of by a common judgment as the points involved in them are identical.

2. The various respondents in these appeals were being prosecuted by the Delhi Development Authority - hereinafter called the Authority - constituted under the Delhi Development Act, 1957 -hereinafter referred to as Development Act, u/s 29 (2) of the said Act. Large number of such prosecutions were started against various persons owning land and buildings in the different areas of Delhi for the alleged violation of Section 14 of the Development Act Some of the persons prosecuted challenged the legality of the prosecution by filling Writ Petitions and some by filing Criminal Petitions for the quashing of the conviction or the prosecution One Writ Petition being Writ Petn.. No. 728 of 1970 was disposed of by a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court consisting of Hardy and Deshpande, JJ. by their judgment reported in the case of N. K. Vasuraj v. Delhi Development Authority. ILR (1971) 2 Delhi 21. The view take in that case was:

It is contended that no prosecution could be filed before the zonal plans in respect of the zones in which the premises are situated come into force. But the reply is that S. -14 of the Act applies "after the coming into operation of any of the plans." Therefore, as the Master Plan has come into operation and the user is contrary to the Master Plan, the prosecutions are legal even though no zonal plans have yet been framed for these zones."

3. After the decision aforesaid a number of other Writ Petitions were filed. Five of these came up for hearing by a Full Bench of the Delhi High Court consisting of Andley, C. J., Tatachari and Shanker, JJ. The Bench has allowed the Writ applications and issued a writ of mandamus against the Authority from prosecuting the criminal prosecutions against the respondents which were pending before a Judicial Magistrate at Delhi. The Magistrate has also been restrained from proceeding with the cases. The five Civil appeals are directed from the judgment and order D/- 3-12-1973 of the Full Bench of the Delhi High Court.

4. Following the Full Bench decision aforesaid Criminal Revn. 386 of 1973 was allowed by a learned single judge by his order D/-7-1-1974 and the conviction of the respondent in Criminal Appeal No. 330 of 1974 which arises from the said order was quashed. In the Criminal Miscellaneous Case giving rise to Criminal Appeal No. 329 of 1974, another learned Judge of the Delhi High Court sitting singly quashed the criminal proceedings against the respondent in the said appeal by his order D/- 19-12-1973 following the decision of the Full Bench.

5. In the beginning of the judgment, learned Judges constituting the Full Bench have remarked

"Various other questions have been raised in these petitions which appear to us to be questions of fact including the question whether the user in the case of any particular building is residential or non-residential either wholly or in part. We are not going into these questions of fact. We are determining these Writ Petitions on the assumption that the actual user is not residential. The question is whether such user is actionable under the Development Act on the ground that it is otherwise than in conformity with the Master Plan which is in force."

Preliminary objection raised on behalf of the Authority to the maintainability of the writ petitions was overruled. Various provisions of the Development Act have been referred to in the judgement of the High Court and the conclusions arrived at are the following:

1. .....it follows that the Master Plan may provide not only for user of land as distinguished from that of building in the various zones but also for the user of building on such land"

2. "it seems to us on a perusal of Section 8 of the Development Act that in reality it is the domain of the zonal Development Plans to provide for the uses to w