The court emphasized that the sanction for the modified plan given by the relevant authorities rendered the petition infructuous, and subsequent developments made it unnecessary to issue directions to demolish the construction already made.

JUDGMENT - KAKADE P.V., J:---The petitioner has filed this writ petition seeking directions to respondent No. 1 Lonavla Municipal Council to cease all further construction upon sites 3 and 9 of sector-F of the development plan of Lonavla, till the proper procedure as prescribed under section 37 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1963 (hereinafter referred to as the M.R.T.P. Act) has ben completed and sanction of respondent No. 5 State Government has been obtained and for directing the respondent No. 1 to demolish the construction already made upon the said sites and restore these sites to their original position, if required sanction is not given finally by respondent No. 5.

2. The petitioner is a citizen and residing at Lonavla. Respondent No. 1 is the Lonavla Municipal Council and respondents 2 and 3 are its officers. Respondent No. 4 is the Director of the Town Planning, Maharashtra, whereas the respondent No. 5 is the State Government. It is submitted on behalf of the petitioner that the respondent No. 4 is an authority appointed by the State Government under M.R.T.P. Act. Under section 37 of the M.R.T.P. Act, it is the respondent No. 5 which has to accord a sanction to any modification in a final development plan after consulting the respondent No. 4. According to the petitioner, the development plan to Lonavla (Revised) has been sanctioned by the concerned department in the year 1978 and it came into force on 1-2-1978. The said plan of the area of Lonavla railway station and areas surrounding around Site Nos. 3 and 9, show that the area is reserved for the Primary school and play-ground (site No. 3) and Municipal Hospital and staff quarters (Site No. 9) have been marked in red upon the plan annexed as Exh. A to the petition.

It is the case of the petitioner that the respondent No. 1 decided to amend the Development Plan of Lonavla and has already begun construction work upon the new site of certain plots of land without having followed proper procedure under the law. It is against this modification of the development plan that the petitioner is constrained to file this petition. One of the proposed modification in the development plan is that a portion of the hospital and staff quarters land is proposed to be used for building a shopping centre. Respondents 1, 2 3 have issued an advertisement in newspaper that an auction will be held of the galas in the proposed shopping centre in the month of October, 1991 and hence the petition is filed in this Court to seek relief against such move initiated by respondents 1, 2 3.

3. We have heard the learned Counsel for both sides and perused the entire record along with the affidavits filed by the concerned parties in support of their respective contentions.

4. The petition is filed in the year 1991. As the record shows, drastic developments have taken place till the matter finally came up for hearing. Mr. K.K. Singhvi, the learned Counsel for the petitioner took us through the various provisions of the M.R.T.P. vis a vis the state of facts revealed from the record and submitted that the entire auction initiated and taken on behalf of the respondents 1, 2 3 is illegal and bad in law and, therefore, is liable to be rectified by direction of this Court. On the other hand, Mr. Pitre, the learned Counsel appearing for respondents 1, 2 3 submitted that pending the petition, the development plan for Lonavla in respect of Site Nos. 3 9 of Sector-F has been modified and in view of this aspect, the entire petition is rendered infructuous. In this regard, our attention is invited to the affidavits filed on behalf of respondent No. 1 as well as respondent No. 4. The Assistant Director of Town Planning has averred in the affidavit that she has carried out an inspection of the impugned sites on 14-12-2001 and observations made in the course of the said inspection have been noted in inspection note prepared by the office which is annexed to the affidavit. According to he

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