When civil administrations world over are embracing scientific spatial planning techniques to be inevitable for land use and for urban, regional, transport and environmental development, it is disquieting to see that we still confine to parochialism and to very narrow confines of interests in making Rules and Regulations to obtain legitimacy to irregularly and illegally constructed buildings and structures.

2. Every community requires planning systems to be executed by competent personnel supported by specific planning perspectives and to be founded on scientific institutional frame work. The perspective, actors and institutions may change over time influencing both the form and impact of developmental planning but the climacteric requirements of bettering the quality of environment, the prospects for socio-economic development and the general contentment of communities and individuals can never be lost sight of. This is because flawed or discriminatory planning would only enforce inequality between different sectors of societies and can result in severe violation of human, civil and social rights particularly when this impinges on the right to land and property and adequate using conditions.

3. Proper regional or spatial planning gives expression to the economic, social, cultural and ecological policies of a society and should be directed between a balance of regional development and physical organization of space, according to an over all strategy. Most of the societies have recognized this to be the only way forward.

4. However, ironically even in this era, some of the Regulations that come for examination and adjudication before courts concede to a suspicion that our administrators are still occluded in its vision relating to spatial planning and regional development, which for them, present to be no more than mere words and notions and nothing else. This may sound to be my personal predilections and I am aware that a judgment cannot be written on such. I have still indited all the above, and which can be no more than my personal view, because the facts of this case, as I will presently state, would indicate the lopsided vision that our society has to irregular constructions and to what is euphemistically called 'Development' when it conflicts with vested interests.

5. The Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 and the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 enjoin the Power to the Government to issue rules for various purposes including regularization of unauthorized constructions. This power was utilized by the Government in issuing the Kerala Building (Regularization of Unauthorized Construction and Land Development) Rules 1999, as per which, certain constructions that were completed or were on going as on or prior to 15.10.1999, were sanctioned to be regularized by the Authorities empowered therein under a specified and mandated procedure.

6. The above Rules were thereafter superseded by the Kerala Building (Regularization of Unauthorized Construction) Rules 2010 (hereinafter referred to as 'Rules' for brevity). The provisions of these Rules are inevitable that they apply to all unauthorized constructions that were being carried on or completed on or before 31.12.2008 in any municipal area or in any Grama Panchayat area.

7. The Rules offer a definition for the unauthorized constructions deserving benificiaries of regularisation under its operation in Rule 2 (1)(i) which reads thus:

"Unauthorised construction" means any construction or reconstruction carried out or completed on or before the 31st day of December 2008, which the Secretary has no power to regularise under Section 406 of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 or Section 235W of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 and Chapter XX of the building rules"

The Rules then assigns a procedure for disposal of an application made by a person for regularization of such constructions. Rule 5 of the Rules obligate the secretary of the Local Self Government Institutions, before whom the appl