IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD THURSDAY, THE EIGHTH DAY OF JULY TWO THOUSAND AND TEN HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD Civil Revision Petition No.5252 of 2007 Between: Potnuru Rajendra Prasad Gupta ..Petitioner AND The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation .. Respondent ORDER: Heard Sri V. Ravindra Rao, learned counsel for the revision petitioner. Though notice of the revision petition was served on the respondent-Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, none entered appearance on its behalf. This revision is directed against the order of the Principal Junior Civil Judge, Visakhapatnam in G.R.No.15349/07-11-2007 in unnumbered O.S.No. of 2007 dated 19-11-2007. The trial Court considered the plea that Section 685 of the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act (for short “the Act”), which applies to Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation also, has no application where mala fides is attributed to the authorities of the Corporation and also considered the decision cited by the learned counsel for the plaintiff before it and came to the conclusion that in C.R.P.No.2865 of 2006, the High Court has held that the Courts have no power to dispense with the requirement of serving notice under Section 685 of the Act, and consequently, the binding precedent makes it necessary to comply with Section 685 of the Act in the present case also. Therefore, the plaint was directed to be returned for complying with the requirement of Section 685 of the Act and reporting compliance to the trial Court to enable it to proceed further. The revision petitioner challenges the said order stating that the order in C.R.P.No.2865 of 2006 has been rendered on the facts in that case and not to be of general application and the suit in question does not require any such statutory notice. It has to be incidentally noticed that in C.R.P.M.P.No.6962 of 2007 herein, this Court ordered an interim injunction until further orders, while admitting the revision petition and the interim injunction sought for and granted was restraining the respondent- Corporation from damaging or demolishing any part of the building in the schedule property pending disposal of the revision. The order continued to be in force from 23-11-2007 up to date. Section 685 of the Act by its plain and unambiguous language appears to admit of no exceptions and it prohibits institution of any suit against the Corporation or any officer of the Corporation in respect of any act done in pursuance of execution or intended execution of the statute or in respect of any alleged neglect or default in the execution of the Act until after the expiry of the statutory period of notice mentioned therein and precedents are in abundance and need no specification that such suit notice is mandatory in such suits. The trial Court cannot be considered to have gone wrong if it faithfully followed a binding precedent from this Court and the revision petitioner had not shown any material to make the provisions of the mandatory requirement inapplicable to his particular suit against the Corporation. While the impugned order should, therefore, be upheld, in the interests of justice, the revision petitioner should be given an opportunity to comply with Section 685 of the Act, pending which the interim order already granted by this Court can be directed to be continued in order to protect the rights and interests of both parties as any demolition of the building in the meanwhile will place the revision petitioner in a position, which cannot be compensated by any costs, even if he succeeds in his litigation against the Corporation on merits subsequently. As the period of notice required by the statute is one month extending the said order by two months would provide every opportunity to the revision petitioner to take such notice as required. Accordingly, the Civil Revision Petition is dismissed without costs. But, the interim injunction granted in C.R.P.M.P.No.6962 of 2007 dated 23-11-2007 shall continue to be in force for a period of two months more from today. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 08-07-2010 Ksn