The main legal point established in the judgment is the authority of the Commissioner of Municipal Corporation to compound unauthorized constructions under Section 308-B of the Municipal Corporation Act, 1956, and the Court's direction for compliance with compounding terms and conditions.

Heard.

1. Petitioner has filed this petition against the show cause notice dated 29.09.2009 (Annexure P/1) in regard to removal of encroachment.

2. Earlier, petitioner submitted an application under Section 308-B of the Municipal Corporation Act, 1956. That application was accepted by the Corporation with the conditions that the petitioner shall deposit an amount of Rs. 7,64,880/- as compounding fees.

3. The State Government issued a notification and added Section 308-B in Madhya Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act, 1956. By the aforesaid amendment, power of compounding has been given to the Commissioner of Municipal Corporation for certain period. The petitioner submitted an application to the Municipal Corporation for compounding. The Municipal Corporation rejected the application of compounding.

4. Meanwhile, a Public Interest Litigation Petition was filed before this Court, which was registered as Sardar Joginder Singh Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh & Others, W.P. No.3178 of 2006 (PIL). This Court appointed the District Judge, Gwalior to enquire the cases of compounding. The District Judge in his report held that the order of compounding of the petitioner was not proper. On the basis of the report of the District Judge, the Municipal Corporation issued impugned notice to petitioner in regard to removal of construction, Annexure-P/1.

5. Thereafter the Division Bench of this Court vide order dated 4-8-2008, disposed of the aforesaid Public Interest Litigation petition with the following directions:-

4/8/2008

Applicant by Shri Padam Singh, Advocate.

Respondents No. 1, 2 and 4 by Shri Vivek Khedkar, Government Advocate.

Respondent No. 3 by Shri P.D. Bidua, Advocate.

Respondent No. 5 by Shri Sanjeev Jain, Advocate.

Heard.

This writ petition is filed as P.I.L. by the petitioner alleging that the respondent corporation is illegally compounding the matter of 308 buildings which were constructed contrary to the Municipal Corporation bye laws.

Counsel for the Municipal pointed out that there is amendment in Municipal Corporation Act dated 2nd August, 2005. Accordingly, the Corporation has examined the buildings and also examined the applications for compounding and compounded number of buildings and permission was cancelled in respect of other building.

This Court has also called for report of the District Judge about complaint with regard to compounding. The District Judge, Gwalior has given his report that the Corporation undertakes to comply with the defects pointed by the District Judge in his report and takes strong action against the persons who had constructed buildings contrary to bye laws and whose application for compounding is found untrustable by the District Judge.

The Corporation is free to compound the matters in regard to the buildings whose application for compounding are found proper and remove the construction where compounding applications are rejected.

Petitioner or any other person aggrieved is free to move appropriate applications under Section 307 if they feel that the constructions are wrongly compounded.

With this direction this petition is disposed of. Amount of security deposit be refunded to the petitioner after due verification.

6. It is clear from the direction issued by this Court that the Corporation was given a liberty to compound the matters in regard to buildings whose applications were found proper.

7. The State of Madhya Pradesh inserted Section 308-B by M.P. Act 29 of 2003. The aforesaid Section prescribes power to the Commissioner Municipal Corporation for compounding and gives relaxation in compounding the unauthorised construction. The relevant Section is as under:-

308-B. Relaxation in compounding the unauthorised construction.- (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in Section 308-A or any other provisions of this Act or any other law for the time being in force, the Commissioner may, on the application made in this behalf by order, compound the cases involving deviations from the approved plan or map, or