Writ petition against revised building permission not maintainable: HC

04/06/2026

JAMMU, Jun 3: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has dismissed a writ petition challenging a revised building permission granted by the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), holding that such orders are revisable before the J&K Special Tribunal and cannot ordinarily be challenged directly under writ jurisdiction.
Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal observed that the petitioner had an efficacious statutory remedy under Section 403 of the J&K Municipal Corporation Act but chose to bypass the prescribed mechanism and directly approach the High Court.
The petition was filed by Mohammad Ameen War, a resident of Chinar Avenue, Naseembagh, Srinagar, challenging Revised Building Permission Order No. 27 of 2019 dated May 20, 2019, issued in favour of a neighbouring property owner after certain construction deviations were treated as compoundable by the SMC.
The petitioner alleged that the construction had deviated substantially from the sanctioned plan and argued that the municipal authorities lacked jurisdiction to regularise the deviations after issuing a demolition notice. He also claimed that the deviations were major and non-compoundable in nature.
Rejecting the challenge, the court held that questions relating to the extent of deviations, permissibility of compounding, sanctioned plans, measurements and applicability of building bye-laws involved disputed factual and technical issues that could not ordinarily be adjudicated under Article 226 of the Constitution. Such matters, the court said, are best examined by the competent statutory forum.
Justice Nargal referred to earlier judgments of the High Court and the Supreme Court emphasising that writ jurisdiction should not be invoked when an effective alternative remedy is available under the statute. The court noted that building permissions granted by the municipal authorities are revisable before the J&K Special Tribunal in terms of Section 403 of the Act.
The court also rejected allegations of mala fides, collusion and corruption against the authorities and the private respondent, observing that the claims were bald, omnibus and unsupported by any cogent material on record.
Observing that the dispute essentially arose from objections to construction activity undertaken by a neighbouring property owner, the court held that merely referring to planning laws or public rights would not convert an individual dispute into a matter of public interest.
The court further closed the connected contempt proceedings, holding that no wilful or deliberate disobedience of any judicial order had been established. It noted that the construction was undertaken pursuant to a revised permission granted by the competent authority and that the legality of such permission could not be examined in contempt jurisdiction.
Accordingly, the writ petition and the connected contempt petition were dismissed, with liberty to the petitioner to avail any statutory remedy available under law before the competent forum.

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