( 1 ) THE dispute revolves mainly around the effect of Bye-laws made by the New Delhi Municipal Committee relating to pasting of Bills and Advertisements framed under section 188 (n) of the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911. However, let me first bring forth the factual canvass.

( 2 ) THE plaintiff firm is engaged in the business of outdoor publicity/advertisement, inter alia, by way of display of hoardings etc. in Delhi and other places. It says that it applied by registered post to the New Delhi Municipal Committee for grant of permission to its advertisement hoardings at two places, one within the premises of the National Stadium at the India Gate round-about and the second on the land allegedly belonging to the Northern Railways at Safdarjung Fly over and as the New Delhi Municipal Committee failed to intimate its decision in writing to the applicant within sixty days of receipt of the application, the same was deemed to have been sanctioned as per Bye law 3 of the Bye-laws and consequently the hoardings were erected and advertisements displayed. The grievance of the plaintiff firm is that the New Delhi Municipal Committee is threatening to remove, deface and damage the said hoardings. Hence its suit for permanent injunction and an application under Order 39 rules 1 and 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure for grant of interim relief.

( 3 ) ON December 15, 1994 notice of the application under Order 39 was ordered by a learned single Judge to be issued for February 17, 1995 and, in the meanwhile, the New Delhi Municipal Committee was restrained from removing, defacing, damaging or interfering with the two advertisement hoardings in question.

( 4 ) THE New Delhi Municipal Committee has contested the suit and has sought vacation of the interim order. It contends that no application was received, that the postal A. D. card is a forgery, and that even if sanction is deemed to have been granted, it must be taken to be limited to the advertisements originally displayed and as such the plaintiff firm cannot keep on displaying different advertisements without first obtaining sanction with regard to them too. In support reliance is sought to be placed on the Bye-laws.

( 5 ) THERE is nothing on the record to lend support to the assertion that the postal A. D. card is forged. For the present thus, we may simply brush aside this argument.

( 6 ) I may as well mention that as per the learned counsel for the Committee it were some other documents which were received by registered post. I am not inclined to accept, not for the present at least, this argument as well. The reasons are two. Firstly, this is not pleaded and secondly when pointedly asked by me to produce the documents which were actually received, the learned counsel preferred to become evasive.

( 7 ) PRIMA facie, the plaintiff firm did apply for sanction. Admittedly, the Committee did not intimate its decision in writing to the applicant within sixty days of the receipt of the application. What is its effect? Bye-law 3 (3) says:

"the Committee may on receipt of an application referred to above sanction with or without modification or sanction subject to certain conditions or refuse to sanction, the erection, alteration of display of the sign, as may be deemed proper and shall communicate the decision to the applicant. If within sixty days of receiving an application, the Committee fails to intimate in writing to the applicant, the application shall be deemed to have been sanctioned. "

( 8 ) CONSEQUENTLY thus, prima facie, the application is to be taken as having been sanctioned. However, this does not end the matter here.

( 9 ) THE contention of the learned counsel for the respondent Committee was that even if the application be taken to have been sanctioned such sanction cannot be utilised for all types of "advertisement signs". If I understand the contention correctly it means if sanction is accorded say for advertisement sign of company a depicting an apple falling fr