The main legal point established in the judgment is that the demolition of a building and the eviction of a tenant must be based on valid legal grounds and authorities cannot act beyond the powers granted by law.

Barin Ghosh, J.

1. By the Bihar Regional Development Authority Ordinance made sometimes in the year 1974 Patna Regional Development Authority (hereinafter referred as PRDA) was established.

This Ordinance was subsequently kept alive by subsequent Ordinances. By repealing the last of such Ordinances on 25th January, 1982, the Bihar Regional Development Authority Act, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as the Development Act) was made. By virtue thereof, PRDA commenced functioning as the development authority for the city of Patna as constituted by and under the Development Act.

2. On 26th April, 1997, the respondent no. 5 obtained a sanction from PRDA to construct a new building on the land, on a portion whereof the building in which the appellant had his tenancy was situated. One of the conditions for grant of the said sanction was to demolish the existing building situate on the land where the new building was proposed to be constructed within a period of six months from the date of sanction, as was undertaken by the proposer seeking the sanction.

That condition suggests that the respondent no. 5, while submitting the application for sanction to construct the new building on the land in question, undertook to demolish the existing building within a period of six months and accordingly, the sanction for construction of the new building became conditional upon compliance by the respondent no. 5 of her such undertaking.

3. In 1997, the Owners started demolition of the upper floors of the old building.

At that stage, the appellant filed Title Suit No. 76 of 1997 in the Court of the 3rd Munsif, Patna, seeking a declaration that he cannot be evicted from his tenancy except on execution of a degree passed by Court on one or the other of the grounds mentioned in Sec. 11 of the Bihar Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1982 (hereinafter referrec to as the Buildings Act). In the said suit it was contended that without taking recourse to the provisions of the Buildings Act, the Owners are demolishing the build ing for the purpose of evicting the appel lant. In the suit, a prayer was made for restraining the Owners from demolishing the building in question. When an application was filed seeking interim injunctior restraining the Owners from demolishing the building, an affidavit was filed in the suit by the Owners stating that the appellant will not be evicted from his tenancy without due process of law and the portion of the building in which his tenancy is existing will not be demolished. There is no dispute that the sanction, as was accorded to construct the new building on the land in question, made it clear that the part of the land upon which the old building stood and in which the appellant had his tenancy, will remain as a vacant(and.

4. On 20th January, 1998, the appellant filed an application before the Vice-Chairman of PRDA seeking two reliefs namely, cancellation of the sanction to construct the new building and to stop further construction activities of the now building. The ground in support of both the prayers was that the tenancy of the appellant in the old building is still continuing and accordingly, the undertaking given to demolish the same is of no effect. It was contended, while suppression of continuation of tenancy of the appellant is a misrepresentation, in view of the fact that the tenancy is in existence the new building cannot be constructed, inasmuch as the old building cannot be demolished.

The matter was thereupon taken up by the Vigilance Department of PRDA and one Sri A.K. Srivastava reported on 9th March, 1998 that the old building in the front set back of the proposed new building is to be demolished according to the sanction plan and the old building has been held by the authority to be illegal. It was also reported that the prayer of the appellant for cancellation of the building plan is misconceived, unjustified and based on imagination and without taking into consideration the aim a