The main legal point established in the judgment is that a power of attorney for regularisation of a building plan does not need to be registered under Section 17 or Section 18 of the Registration Act 1908, and the rejection of the application solely on the ground that the power of attorney was not registered cannot be sustained.

D. Murugesan, J.

The question raised in this writ petition is as to whether the first respondent C.M.D.A could insist for registered power of attorney when an application is filed through a power of attorney seeking for regularisation of the building plan or not ?

2. The petitioners 1 to 5 are holders of power of attorney and petitioners 6 to 25 are represented through Power of Attorney viz., the petitioners 1 to 5. The issue relates to the construction of building in Door No.18/4, New Mahabalipuram Main road, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai 41. A planning permission was obtained from C.M.D.A on 2.9.1993 for construction of building. There were some deviations in the constructions. Hence a regularisation application was made on 31.10.2000 by one of the occupants. That application came to be rejected by the respondents in their order dated 12.8.2002 on the ground that the applicant should submit 5 sets of revised plan ; attested copy of the earlier approved plan ; ownership documents, NOC from the Director of Fire Service and the Original copy of the receipt dated 31.12.2000. The deficiencies were rectified and the application was resubmitted. But the same was not considered. Hence, writ petition in W.P.No.2424 of 2007 came to be filed and the Division Bench by order dated 22.1.2007 directed the C.M.D.A to dispose of the application as the building was said to be constructed prior to 28.2.1999. It appears that in spite of the said direction no orders were passed. Hence, the applicant had again approached this Court by way of being mentioned in W.P.No. 2184 of 2007 for a direction to the respondents to issue orders of regularisation. That petition came to be disposed of on 16.4.2007 with a direction to the respondent to pass orders within three months from that date duly taking into consideration of the earlier order dated 22.1.2007. Subsequently, by an order dated 9.7.2007 the application was rejected on the ground that the applicant had individually applied for regularisation of the entire building premises and the individual flat owner or owner of the part of the building may not have any right to submit an application for regularisation under the Regularisation 1999 Scheme for the entire building. That order was challenged before this court in W.P.No.35102 of 2007 and again the Division Bench by order dated 19.11.2007 disposed of the writ petition in view of the submission of the learned counsel for C.M.D.A that the application made by the petitioner for regularisation would be considered on its own merits and appropriate orders would be passed in consultation with the Management committee within a period of two months from the said date.

3. In spite of the above direction no orders were passed by the respondent. Again this court by another order dated 10.1.2008 directed the respondent to consider the application for regularisation. Pursuant to the above direction, the respondent Member Secretary C.M.D.A has passed the order dated 6.11.2008 rejecting the application on the ground that the Monitoring Committee has resolved to reject the regularisation application as the building is owned by several others holding undivided shares of land and they have not given any registered power of attorney in favour of the applicant. This order is put in issue in the present writ petition.

4. We have heard Mr.M.Krishnappan, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner together with Mr. S.Sundaresan, learned counsel on record and Mr.C.Kathiravan, learned counsel appearing for the respondents.

5. The only question that arises for consideration is whether the respondents would be justified in rejecting the application for regularisation of the building plan solely on the ground that the application was made by the power holders and the same was not registered.

6. Section 17 of the Registration Act 1908 provides for the compulsory registration of documents. It categorises the following documents to be compulsorily registered viz.,

(a) i