A.K. JAYASANKARAN NAMBIAR, J.

1. The petitioners in these writ petitions are persons who had applied to the Municipalities/ Panchayats in question for building permits to put up constructions on properties owned by them within the territorial limits of the respective local authorities. The lands in question were purchased by them from vendors who happened to own larger tracts of land, and from which, smaller portions were sold to the petitioners herein. The local authority rejected the applications for building permit on the ground that the land in which the construction was proposed formed part of an unauthorised layout, the development of which was not pursuant to any development permit obtained by the erstwhile owners of the land. The petitioners were therefore asked to produce the development permit in respect of the land for the purposes of processing their applications for building permit. The orders of the local authorities, rejecting the applications for building permit, are impugned in these writ petitions.

2. Counter affidavits have been filed on behalf of the respondent Municipality/Panchayat, wherein, the stand taken by the said local authorities is that the property purchased by the petitioners formed part of the larger extent of property owned by the vendors of the property. Reference is made to Section 360 of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994, read with Rule 2(v) and Rule 27 of the Kerala Municipality Building Rules, 1999, which deals with the conditions to be fulfilled while developing lands in the manner prescribed, to justify the rejection of the applications for building permit.

3. I have heard Sri. K.P. Vijayan, Sri. K.I. Sageer Ibrahim as also Sri. P.K. Sajeev, the learned counsel for the petitioners in all the writ petitions, Smt. Girija K. Gopal, the learned Standing counsel for the respondent Municipality, Sri. P.C. Sasidharan, the learned Standing counsel for the respondent Panchayat as also Sri. Paul Abraham Vakkanal, the learned Government Pleader for the official respondents in all the writ petitions.

4. On a consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case as also the submissions made across the bar, I find from a perusal of the Kerala Municipality Building Rules 1999, which contain provisions akin to the Kerala Panchayat Building Rules, 2011, that as per Rule 4 of the said Rules, every person intending to develop or redevelop any parcel of land or cause the same to be done, cannot do so without first obtaining a permission for each such development or redevelopment from the Secretary of the local authority concerned. Similarly, every person intending to construct or reconstruct or make addition or extension or alteration to any building or who causes the same to be done has to first obtain a separate building permit for each such work from the Secretary. Section 5 deals with the application for development permit in cases where it is required, and the procedure to be followed by the applicant for development permit is enumerated thereafter. It is not in dispute in these cases that the petitioners, who intend to construct buildings on the property purchased by them, will be required to obtain a building permit from the local authority as a pre-condition for putting up the said building in that property. As a matter of fact, in all these writ petitions, the petitioners had preferred applications for building permit which were refused by the orders impugned in these writ petitions.

5. The question that essentially arises for consideration is whether the petitioners, who have purchased small parcels of land from the vendors, who had larger parcels of land, from which a smaller portion was sold to the petitioners, are required to produce a development permit in respect of the lands purchased by them as a pre-condition for effecting the constructions proposed, through the building permit sought by them. It is relevant in this connection to notice the definition of development as obtaining u