The main legal point established is the requirement of serving a specific notice to the concerned person and recording satisfaction before taking any action under section 307(2) of the Act of 1956.

ORDER : – The case of the petitioner is that he is living in a house in Village Kakartala, Jabalpur. The house in question is about 70 years old and is his ancestral property. The respondent-Municipal Corporation has served a show cause notice to the petitioner mentioning the name of Rudra Yadav under section 307(2) of the Municipal Corporation Act, 1956 (hereinafter referred to as “Act of 1956” for short). By the said show cause notice dated 16-2-2021 (Annexure-P/3), the building permission and other relevant documents of ownership etc. relating to the house in question were asked within a period of three days.

2. The petitioner apprehending the demolition of the house in question, has approached this Court by way of filing Writ Petition No. 4230/2021. However, during the pendency of the said writ petition, impugned order dated 19-2-2021 (Annexure-P/5) has been issued, wherein, it is recorded that the reply of the petitioner is not satisfactory and, house in question is found to be illegally constructed. The petitioner was asked to remove his encroachment within a period of 24 hours, failing which the Corporation would take action against the petitioner. It is this order dated 19-2-2021 (Annexure-P/5), is under challenge in the present writ petition.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that firstly, the earlier notice dated 16-2-2021 (Annexure-P/3) was served to the brother of the petitioner, namely, Rudra Yadav and even the name of the petitioner is not mentioned therein and secondly, in the impugned order including the name of the brother of the petitioner Rudra Yadav, name of the petitioner himself Akhlesh Yadav, Bablu Yadav, Kallu Bai, Kishan Lal, Gajendra Yadav, Uma Yadav, Uma Bai, Vishnu Yadav, Ramcharan Yadav, Kakartala Gadheri, Dumna Ward 79, have been mentioned. He submits that such an exercise of power under section 307 of the Act of 1956 is not permissible. Firstly, the show cause notice is required to be issued to the person concerned which according to the Corporation is in unauthorised occupation of any house and secondly, before taking any action, the Corporation has to record its satisfaction as to why the explanation/reply if any, so submitted by the person concerned, is not found satisfactory. In the instant case, there is no consideration at all. Despite that, there was no notice to the petitioner. Petitioner on his own filed an affidavit (Anenxure-P/4) dated 17-2-2021 before the Corporation to say that the house in question was constructed 70 years ago and his brother Rudra Yadav resides at different place. He also submitted that the corporation should also take into consideration the fact that the concerned village where the disputed house is located, are first time included in the limit of the Corporation in the year 2014 and prior to that the limit of the Corporation was not extended to those villagers. According to him for all those reasons, the impugned action of the Corporation deserves to be set aside.

4. The learned counsel appearing for the Corporation submits that the instant petition is not maintainable and the same deserves to be dismissed on account of availability of efficacious alternative remedy to the petitioner under sub-section (5) of section 307 of the Act of 1956 and the petitioner should approach the concerned District Court for appropriate reliefs. He places reliance on a Division Bench decision of this Court in the matter of Mayur Sharma and another vs. State of Madhya Pradesh and others, W. P. No. 3805 of 2021 decided on 17-3-2021.

5. In response to the preliminary objection, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner places reliance on a decision of this Court in the matter of Laxmi Prasad Tamrakar vs. Municipal Corporation of Raipur, 1980 M.P.L.J. 614 and he submits that the similar argument has been dealt with by the learned Single Judge of this Court specifically in paragraph 5 of the aforesaid decision.

6. So far as the preliminary objection with regard to avai