S/L 22 v. The State of West Bengal & Ors.

“It is pertinent and important to mention here that in the plan it has been mentioned that the Ground Floor is Existing and First & Second Floor are proposed on the date of plan was submitted and signed on 05-07-2016 by Pradhan of the Gram Panchayat. Further, it has been mentioned in the building plan that the plan is ‘Proposed Additional & Alteration Work Over A New Constructed Building’ From the above it appears that; i) ii) Either there might be one original plan and this plan signed on 05-07-2016 is subsequent plan. The father of the owner, Sri Mohan Maji informed that there was no earlier plan Or There was no plan submitted earlier and plan signed by the Pradhan of the Gram Panchayat on 05-07-2016 is only plan. CONCLUSION; i) ii) iii) An additional area of 72 Sq. ft has been constructed on Ground Floor beyond plan. An additional area of 223 sq.ft has been constructed on First Floor beyond plan.

It is abundantly clear from building plan that there existed building on Ground Floor prior to plan was signed by the Pradhan of the Gram Panchayat and First and Second Floor is proposed to be constructed over Ground Floor on 05-07-2016, the date of submitting the plan and signing the plan by the Pradhan of the Gram Panchayat. (K.S. Bhatia) Civil Engineer.” Thus, the enquiry conducted by the Court through the civil engineer/special officer revealed that 72 sq.ft of the ground floor was beyond the plan and additional 223 sq.ft, which was constructed on the first floor was beyond the plan. 3 The date of submission of the plan was July 5, 2016. The report stated that it was abundantly clear from the plan that there was an existing ground floor prior to sanction of the plan. The Nirman Sahayak of the gram panchayat also conducted an enquiry on behalf of the panchayat authorities and an enquiry report was filed by the joint Block Development Officer containing the enquiry report of the panchayat authority.

It appears that 3 ft. mandatory space required to be kept vacant was not maintained. The sanction plan was approved on February 12, 2016 for construction only of the ground floor. There were serious irregularities in such construction. It is clear that the exercise required to be done by the panchayat authorities has been completed. The Court itself also caused an enquiry through a civil engineer who was appointed by the Court to make the inspection . There can be no doubt that there are irregularities. Neither exceptions to the report nor any objection to the same has been filed by the respondent no.6. This matter has been running in the list for a while and despite notices the respondent no.6 has chosen to stay away. As the respondent no.6 has not rectified the defects by removing the unauthorized portions, this Court deems it fit to direct the concerned panchayat authorities to refer the entire matter with all the records and the enquiry report conducted by the Nirman Sahayak to the Sub-Divisional Officer, Tamluk in terms of Section 23(5) of the West Bengal 4 Panchayat Act, 1973 within a period of two weeks for necessary compliance.