Municipal authorities must ensure compliance with lease conditions regarding building approvals, and allegations of document forgery warrant thorough investigation.

1. The petitioners are trustees of Jagannath Roy Family Benefit Trust and the petitioner I is the Managing Trustee of the said Trust.

2. On or about July 16, 1935 a deed of lease for a period of 61 years in respect of a premises No. 2/2/1B, Chittaranjan Avenue, Calcutta subsequently renumbered as No. 135A, Chittaranjan Avenue, Calcutta was executed by and between S.C. Mitra, the lessor and Babulal Chaukhani, the lessee. The said lease is due to expire on Aug. 10, 1995 without any right of option for renewal of the said lease.

3. The lessor in the said lease S.C. Mitra transferred the said demised property to Jagannath Roy by a registered deed of sale on Apr. 26, 1939. By reason of such transfer, all right, title and interest in the said demised property stood transferred to and vested in the transferee the said Jagannath Roy. The name of the transferee was duly mutated in place of the transferor in the records of the Corporation of Calcutta. Thus the said lessee Babulal Chaukhani became the lessee under the said Jagannath Roy.

4. The said Jagannath Roy created a trust named "Jagannath Roy Family Deferred Benefit Trust" in which the heirs of the settlors were made beneficiaries, and the said trust was registered on Sept. 10, 1972. The said Trust comprised the said property, the subject-matter of the said lease.

5. The respondents Nos. 5 and 8 are the heirs and legal representatives of one Rameswar Lal Ganeriwalal to whom, it is alleged by these respondents, the right, title and interest of the said lessee Babulal Chaukhani in the said demised premises were transferred by and under an indenture of lease dt. June 30, 1983.

6. It is alleged by the petitioners that they came to know on or about Nov. 12, 1985 that the said respondents 5 to 8 were making arrangement for building masonry structure on the said demised land, and the said respondent got a plan sanctioned by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, the respondent 1, in respect of the proposed building on the said demised land. It is also alleged by the petitioners that one of the terms of the said deed of lease is that no building plan could be sanctioned without prior approval of the lessor. It is the further allegation of the petitioners that the said respondents 5 to 8 got the building plan sanctioned by the respondent 1 fraudulently and by suppression of the said material fact that the plan could not be sanctioned without prior approval of the lessor, the petitioner herein as trustees of the said trust. The petitioners also allege that it also came to their notice upon enquiry that the respondents 5 to 8 got their names mutated in place of the said Babulal Chaukhani the original lessee on the said deed of lease.

7. It is the contention of the petitioners that when the said mutation of the names of the respondents 5 to 8 was made on the basis of the said deed of lease the respondent 1 was aware of the terms and conditions of lease including the condition of getting the plan approved by the lessor before submitting the same to the respondent 1 for sanction. The petitioners also contend that under the said deed of lease the respondents 5 to 8 do not have the unfettered right to make the construction and it is the obligation of the respondent 1 to be satisfied before granting sanction as to the status of the applicants and their right to make such construction. It is also the contention of the petitioners that non-fulfilment of the said condition of obtaining prior approval of the lessor, as provided in the said deed of lease, would invalidate the application for sanction of the building plan, and the respondents 1 to 4, the municipal authorities are under obligation to cancel or revoke the said sanction on the ground that the applicants fraudulently or by mis