The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of Section 47-A of the Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Act, which determined the mandatory and optional nature of obtaining approval for building constructions.

ORDER :

Prayer : Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for the issuance of a Writ of Certiorarified Mandamus, to call for the records relating to the impugned Government Order in G.O(1D) No.221, School Education (MS) Department dated 10.08.2022 issued by the 1st respondent and to quash the same and consequently directing the respondents 1 to 4 to grant renewal of recognition for the petitioner schools for a period of three years as per G.O.Ms.No.152 School Education (MS) Department dated 12.11.2021 without insisting submission of application for obtaining concurrence of DTCP for the school building.

Since the issue raised in these writ petitions is one and the same, with the consent of learned counsel appearing for both sides, all these writ petitions were heard together and are disposed of by this common order.

2. The petitioners are associations of Education Institutions, their common grievance is that, Government issued a Government Order i.e., G.O.(1D) No.221 School Education Department dated 10.08.2022, under which, for extension of approval of the educational institutions i.e., Schools, who are the members of these petitioners Associations from 01.06.2022 till 31.05.2023 i.e., for the current academic year, the Management of these institutions should make an application for such extension of approval only with a proof that they have got approval from the competent authorities for having constructed school or education institutions buildings or to file a proof that such an application had already been made to the competent authority to get the approval. Without these proof or documents their plea to get extension of recognition or approval for their school or educational institutions beyond 01.06.2022 would not be considered.

3. Against these import of the Government Order dated 10.08.2022 in G.O.(1D).No.221 referred to above, these writ petitions have been filed.

4. Heard Mr. G. Sankaran and Mr. R. Suresh Kumar, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners, Mr. S. Silambanan, learned Additional Advocate General assisted by Mr. S. Mythreya Chandru, learned Special Government Pleader appearing for the respondents Education Department and Mr. R. Kumaravel, learned Additional Government Pleader appearing for the respondents Housing and Urban Development Department and the Director of Town and Country Planning.

5. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioners pointed out that, almost with similar rigour already a Government Order has been issued by the respondent Government in G.O.No.76, Housing and Urban Development Department dated 14.06.2018, the said Government Order was put under challenge in a batch of writ petitions, which was decided by this Court and ultimately, the Government order was set aside as against which, when some third parties filed intra court appeal in W.A.Nos.233 of 2019 etc., batch before the Division Bench, the stand taken up by the respondent Government was that, the import of G.O.No.76 referred to above only insists the institution to get planning or building approval from the competent authority based on Section 47-A of the Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Act [in short “the Act”] that means, under Section 47-A of the Act, it has become a mandatory one, for those who wants to make any constructions, to get approval from the competent authorities with the prior concurrence of the DTCP.

6. In that context, when the writ appeals were heard by a Division Bench of this Court, the stand taken by the Government was that, such insistment to get approval for the buildings, which were constructed even prior to 01.01.2011, the date on which, Section 47-A of the Act was brought into force, is only optional and there was no mandatory direction given in this regard under the Government Order. This, in fact, has been recorded by the Division Bench in paragraph 13 of the order dated 10.02.2021 in the said batch of writ appeals, which reads thus :

13. In our opinion, when the Governm