Live Law: The Tripura High Court has observed that municipal authorities should not entertain complaints or initiate further coercive action concerning an alleged unauthorized construction when a statutory appeal against the demolition order is already pending before the competent appellate authority.

The Court remarked that such an approach could unnecessarily draw citizens into litigation and emphasized that municipal officers must act fairly and should not “take one side and create hardship to the other.”

Justice Dr. T. Amarnath Goud remarked that: “When the appeal is pending, entertaining the complaint, is unwarranted as the municipal authority could have always advise or direct the complainant to pursue the matter before the appellate authority.

Since the municipal officers are not effectively working as required under the public law, they are drawing the citizens to the Court. It is not for the municipal officer to take one side and create hardship to the other.”