The Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) board will discuss the revocation of former Nationalist Party president Victor Scerri's controversial Baħrija permit during a board meeting on Thursday.

Article 39A gives Mepa the power to cancel an approved permit if there was any fraud or misinformation.

In a recently published report, Mepa auditor Joe Falzon pointed out that the plans submitted by the architect had indicated the area as being level land when in fact it was a sloping area.

He recommended that Mepa determine whether this omission provided sufficient grounds to invalidate the permit because it could have had a bearing on the outcome of the process.

The construction of the farmhouse belonging to Dr Scerri in the middle of a pristine valley was granted a permit despite objections from case officers on four separate occasions.

The project goes back nine years when the first application was submitted to partially demolish two rooms that stood on the site. The authority had refused the application but eight years later authorised the total demolition of the rooms and the construction of a farmhouse.

Excavation works on the site started earlier this year but Dr Scerri stopped the project pending an investigation by the Mepa auditor and the police. It was Dr Scerri himself who had called for both investigations on the day that about 300 environmentalists protested on site against the development.

He then resigned as PN president on July 21 - saying he wanted to fight his case as a private citizen - after Mr Falzon found the board had acted outside the law when it approved the permit for an extension to the farmhouse.

Article 39A was used two years ago to revoke a controversial permit for the re-development of Ulysses Lodge in Ramla l-Ħamra because the developers failed to indicate a public road.

One year later, in 2008, the authority revoked an outline permit for an outdoor disco in Mistra on the grounds that the decision to approve the project was illegal.