1. The issue in this writ petition lies in a very narrow compass: whether a consent letter from the landlord is required for renewal of trade licence?

2. The petitioner, a landlord, has a grievance that the first respondent, while seeking renewal of her business licence from the respondent Corporation, forged his signature and produced a consent letter, based on which the third respondent renewed the licence. Evidently, on a complaint made by the petitioner, the third respondent seems to have gone into the issue and found that the first respondent indeed produced a forged letter of consent. Under those circumstances, through proceedings dated 18.02.2014, he cancelled the licence renewed in favour of the first respondent.

3. Aggrieved by the cancellation of licence, the first respondent filed a statutory appeal before the Council of the respondent Corporation, which affirmed the decision of the third respondent through its order dated 31.01.2014. Further aggrieved, the first respondent approached the Tribunal for Local Self Government Institutions, Thiruvananthapuram, by filing R.P.No.27/2014, which was allowed through Exhibit P2 order dated 11.12.2014. Assailing Exhibit P2 order of the learned Tribunal, the petitioner, the landlord, has filed the present writ petition.

4. The learned counsel for the petitioner has strenuously contended that both the third respondent and the Council of the respondent Corporation — the primary and appellate authorities — have concurrently found that the first respondent produced a forged consent letter and secured renewal licence. According to him, the third respondent has got plenary powers to suspend or cancel the licence in terms of Section 492(9) of the Kerala Municipality Act ('the Act' for brevity).

5. In elaboration of his submissions, the learned counsel for the petitioner has drawn my attention to Section 492(3) of the Act, which speaks of the procedure for obtaining a licence. It is the singular contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that since the licence period cannot exceed one year, even at the time of its renewal, consent of the landlord is mandatory. In other words, once the licence comes to an end, though it is termed as renewal, what is issued subsequently is, in fact, a new licence for the next year; thus, essentially, while obtaining the new licence, the whole process is to be replicated, including that of the consent letter from the landlord. The learned counsel has also submitted that there is no discernible reason why the requirement of obtaining a consent letter for the next year should be dispensed with once it is a pre-condition at the beginning for obtaining the licence.

6. Referring to the observations of the learned Tribunal in paragraph 14 of the order, the learned counsel would contend that essentially the third respondent renewed the licence based on the forged consent letter and as such, it ought not to have brushed aside the concurrent findings of the primary and appellate authorities. Eventually, the learned counsel has submitted that once any benefit is obtained by playing fraud, the beneficiary cannot stake any claim to equities, since fraud vitiates the most solemn of the acts of whatever nature. Thus, the learned counsel has urged this Court to set aside Exhibit P2 order of the learned Tribunal and restore the findings of the third respondent as well as those of the Council of the respondent Corporation.

7. As could be seen, the solitary issue that is to be determined is whether consent letter of the landlord is a pre-condition for renewal of the licence. In the present facts and circumstances, the additional issue that is to be determined is whether alleged production of a forged consent letter should result in cancellation of the licence renewed in favour of the first respondent.

8. To appreciate the issue, it is essential to examine Section 492 of the Act, which, to the extent relevant, is as follows:

492. General provisions regard