Municipal authority can order demolition of unsafe structures, but tenant rights under the Tenancy Act must be respected, requiring a safety assessment before demolition.

for R.1 GPfor M.A& U.D for R.2 Mr. G.L. Nageswara Rao representing Mr. Gajjala Mallikarjuna Reddy for R.3 & R.4 CORAM :THE CHIEF JUSTICE DHIRAJ SINGH THAKUR SRI JUSTICE RAVI CHEEMALAPATI DATE : 27*'’ June, 2025 PC ;

The present writ appeal has been preferred against the judgment and order dated 21.03.2025 passed in W.P.No.12863 of 2020.

2. The petitioners (appellants herein) filed the petition seeking a Mandamus being aggrieved of the action of private respondent Nos.3 & 4 in demolishing a portion of the shopping complex in which the petitioners claim that they are tenants in the ground floor.

HCJ & RC, J WA 727 2025 The demolition was undertaken by private respondents not through the Municipality but on their own. The private respondents had undertaken the demolition process based upon the report submitted by the Andhra Loyola institute of Engineering and Technology, Vijayawada, dated 29.06.2021, wherein it was concluded by the said Institute that the roof slab of the building was damaged and, therefore, it recommended either for retrofitting of the existing roof slab or for safe demolition of the structure. The building in question is stated to be more than 55 years old.

3. Learned counsel for the appellants would submit that the aforementioned report however was obtained by private respondents not at the time of the demolition but subsequently during the pendency of the writ petition.

4. Be that as it may, the matter having been agitated by the petitioners before the learned single Judge, it was observed by the learned single Judge that the issue of demolition of unsafe buildings was covered in terms of Section 231 of the A.P. Municipalities Act, 1965 which envisages that if any structure appears to the Commissioner to be in ruinous state and dangerous to the passersby or to the occupiers of the neighboring structures, he may require the owner/occupier inter alia to take down or repair such a structure.

It is in that background that the learned single Judge proceeded to direct the Municipality to assess the structural stability of the building in HCJ & RC, J WA_727_2025 question and come to an independent conclusion supported by reasons before passing any order of demolition.

5. Learned counsel for the appellants is aggrieved of this order on the ground that no such direction could have been given by the learned single Judge to the Municipality inasmuch as the issue whether a particular building ought to be demolished or not could have been considered only by a civil Court in terms of the Andhra Pradesh Residential and Non Residential Premises Tenancy Act, 2017 [for short, ‘the Act of

2017’].

It is also stated that a civil suit for recovery of possession had since been filed by the private respondents and was pending in the Court of the Principal Junior Civil Judge, Gudivada.

6. Learned counsel for the appellants sought to place reliance upon Section 21 of the Act of 2017 to bring home the point that a tenant could be evicted only in terms of Section 21 on the grounds of non-payment of rent, personal necessity or on grounds of carrying out repairs to the building or on the ground of rebuilding/additions/alterations and even demolition.

7. While it is true that if a landlord, in addition to the grounds which are available to him in terms of Section 21 of the Act of 2017, seeks the eviction of a tenant on the ground of demolition may be on account of the structure having been rendered unsafe yet, the provisions of Section 231 of the Municipalities Act do not take away the right of the Commissioner of the HCJ & RC, J WA 727 2025 Municipality concerned to order such a demolition, if upon assessment of the structural stability of the premises it is found that it would be dangerous to the passersby or the occupiers of the said buil