ORDER : 1. The petitioner Smt. Nagamma has filed this writ petition aggrieved by the order passed by the Deputy Commissioner, Bengaluru Rural District, Bengaluru, Annexure M dated 19.10.2015 and Annexure-N dated 12.08.2015 and 19.10.2015 in the proceedings of the Case No.5/1576 initiated by respondent No.4 Sri Poojappa and the said documents being vernacular language were explained to this Court in English, subject to verification by the opposite counsels to mean that the said Deputy Commissioner entertained the Appeal No.5/2015-16 filed by respondent No.4 Sri Poojappa against the petitioner Smt. Nagamma and Chief Officer of Municipal Office, Nelamangala under the provisions of Section 306 of the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964 and not only protected the claimed possession of the respondent No.4 Sri Poojappa but also suspended the “katha entry” in favour of the present petitioner which was recorded in her favour long back in the year 1972 in pursuance of a ‘Hakku Patra’ vide Annexures ‘E’ and ‘G’. 2. Being aggrieved by the said Annexure M and N, interim order passed by the Deputy Commissioner under Section 306 of the Act, the petitioner filed this writ petition before this Court on 05.11.2015 and while issuing notices to the respondents a coordinate bench of this Court stayed the operation of Annexure N dated 12.08.2015/19.10.2015 and Annexure M dated 19.10.2015 passed by respondent No.2 – Deputy Commissioner. The statement of objection has been filed by the private respondent No.4 in this Court. 3. Learned counsel for the petitioner Mr. T. Seshagiri Rao urged that Section 306 of the Act narrated below does not empower or confer any jurisdiction upon the Deputy Commissioner to entertain any such appeal by the private respondent questioning the “katha entries” in favour of the petitioner recorded about 3 decades back and the learned Deputy Commissioner while entertaining the said appeal which was wholly incompetent before him but he has not only passed the interim order in favour of respondent No.4, but has also suspended the operation of the “katha entry” in favour of the present petitioner in purported exercise of his powers under Section 306 of the Act. 4. 4. He also submitted that the question of title cannot be decided by the Deputy Commissioner in these provisions and without establishing his title, the respondent No.4 could not approach the said Deputy Commissioner for change of “katha entries” in favour of the petitioner on the purported ground that the same were obtained on the basis of some manipulation in the “katha entries” at the behest of the petitioner. He also submitted that the land in question of the petitioner was conferred upon him under the provisions of Section 6 of the Karnataka Village Officers Abolition Act, 1961 on account of services rendered by the petitioner as ‘Hulvadi’ (office for supply of water for irrigation purpose). 5. On the other hand learned counsel for the respondent No.4 Mr. P Siddamallappa submitted that the manipulation on the basis of which, committing a fraud, the petitioner obtained the “katha certificate” in her favour confers the jurisdiction upon the Deputy Commissioner to entertain such appeal or petition of a private party and he can even suspend or cancel such “katha entry” in favour of a person, if such manipulation or forgery is revealed. He also submitted that the impugned orders are merely interlocutory or interim orders passed by the Deputy Commissioner and the petitioner is entitled to satisfy the said respondent – Deputy Commissioner with his title documents and the appeal/petition filed by respondent No.4 is yet to be finally decided by the Deputy Commissioner. He therefore submitted that the writ petition at this stage is not maintainable and deserves to be dismissed. 6. The learned counsel for the Municipal Council however urged that the Deputy Commissioner has no jurisdiction to decide the questions of title and for the change of “katha entries” there was no apprehended breach of public peace in the present case. Similar was the argument of the learned counsel for the State. Both these counsels were yet to file their detailed statement of objections to the writ petition. Scope of Section 306 of the Act 7. Having heard the learned counsels for the parties at this stage, this Court is of the clear and firm opinion that the learned Deputy Commissioner has no jurisdiction to entertain any such appeal or petition for change of “katha entries” in the purported exercise of Section 306 of the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964. The said provisions are reproduced below for ready reference. 306. The said provisions are reproduced below for ready reference. 306. Deputy Commissioner’s power of suspending execution of orders, etc. of Municipal Councils:— (1) If, in the opinion of the Deputy Commissioner, the execution of any order or resolution of a town Municipal Council, or the doing of anything which is about to be done or is being done by or on behalf of a town Municipal Council, is unlawful or is causing or is likely to cause injury or annoyance to the public, or to lead to a breach of the peace, he may, by order in writing under his signature, suspend the execution or prohibit the doing thereof. (2) When a Deputy Commissioner makes any order under this section, he shall forthwith forward to Government and to the 1[Director of Municipal Administration]1 and to the Municipal Council affected thereby a copy of the order, with a statement of the reasons for making it; and it shall be in the discretion of the Government to rescind the order, or to direct that it shall continue in force with or without modification, permanently or for such period as it thinks fit: Provided that no order of the Deputy Commissioner passed under this section shall be confirmed, revised or modified by the Government without giving the Municipal Council, a reasonable opportunity of showing cause against the said order. 1. Substituted by Act 31 of 2003 w.e.f. 20.08.2003. 8. A bare perusal of the said provisions of Section 306 of the Act clearly shows that no such appeal or petition by a private party is envisaged by these provisions to be entertained by the Deputy Commissioner. The provision provides only for a suo moto exercise of the powers by the Deputy Commissioner, if he is of the opinion that the execution of any order or resolution of Town Municipal Council will be unlawful or is causing or likely to cause public injury or annoyance to the public and such execution of the order or resolution of the Municipal Council can lead to a breach of public peace. Upon such contingency, ground and material available before him, he can pass such an order in writing for suspending the execution of the order or resolution of the Municipal Council, subject to approval of the State Government under Sub-Section (2) of the Act and no such order is suppose to be passed by the Deputy Commissioner without providing a reasonable opportunity of showing cause to the concerned Municipal Council. 9. The provisions of Section 306 of the Act do not cover within its scope, the dispute between the private parties at all. The Deputy Commissioner can neither act as a Civil Court nor can he entertain any such petition or appeal as was filed before him in the present case by the private respondent No.4 Sri Poojappa. The question of going into the merits of contentions raised by respondent No.4 does not simply arise, because the so called appeal or petition of the private respondent No.4 was itself totally incompetent and not maintainable within the four corners of Section 306 of the Act. If the respondent No.4 did not have any locus standi to file any such appeal or petition before the Deputy Commissioner, the question of invoking his jurisdiction under these provisions could not arise and therefore entertaining the said appeal of the respondent No.4 and passing of the impugned order Annexures ‘M’ and ‘N’ thereon was an exercise, wholly without jurisdiction of the respondent No.2 Deputy Commissioner. 10. If the basic tenets of provisions of Section 306 of the Act that there should be an actual or threatened breach of public peace on the basis of an order or resolution of the Municipal Council are absent, then completely abusing the power the Deputy Commissioner cannot entertain such a petition or appeal of a private party. It is clear that the said Deputy Commissioner has totally not applied his mind to the relevant provisions of the Act itself under which he was exercising his jurisdiction. 11. The said provisions giving extra ordinary and superior powers to the Deputy Commissioner over the elected public body like Municipal Council to suspend the order or resolution of a duly elected public body, it does not entitle the Deputy Commissioner to enter into the realm of private disputes between the parties like between the petitioner and respondent No.4 in the present case over the “katha entries” in the record of the Municipal Council. Obviously the change of “katha entries” as sought in the present case by the respondent No.4 was a private dispute which could be resolved only through a properly instituted civil suit and the question of any breach of public peace could not arise by any stretch of imagination in the present case. 12. Therefore it also appears that the said Deputy Commissioner entertained an absolutely frivolous petition or appeal of the respondent No.4 and passed the impugned order for extraneous reasons in the present case. 13. The provision of law giving wide and superior powers to a public servant to be exercised over the elected bodies’ resolutions or orders have to be exercised with great amount of circumspection and on a very firmly established grounds on the basis of relevant material and evidence available before the said authority. The present case is just a converse situation brought before the Deputy Commissioner by a private party seeking to undo a “katha entry” in favour of the petitioner after many years and that too without bothering in the least about providing an opportunity of hearing to the affected party, namely the present petitioner, the Deputy Commissioner proceeded to pass the impugned interim orders adversely affecting the petitioner herein. This Court is therefore of the clear opinion that the learned Deputy Commissioner has grossly abused his powers under Section 306 of the Act and has passed the impugned orders on an appeal/petition which was wholly incompetent and not maintainable at all before him. 14. The writ petition therefore deserves to be allowed with costs. The same is allowed with costs of Rs.10,000/- (Rupees Ten Thousand only) payable by each of the Deputy Commissioner, Bengaluru Rural District, Bengaluru, who passed the impugned order and the respondent No.4 Poojappa within three months to the petitioner. Copy be sent to the respondents forthwith.