The aim of this study is to correlate the seismic performance of a RC frame structure at different seismic demand levels with the separation gap that would be inadequate against pounding with an adjacent structure. In this direction nonlinear direct integration seismic analyses have been performed. This study includes the evaluation of the storey (floor to floor) and inter-storey (floor to column) pounding problem at fifteen seismic demand levels, using for each level 2 seismic excitations that have been properly scaled. The seismic performances of the structures without the pounding effect have also been evaluated. The results of the assessment indicate that: (a) Adjacent structure with same stories and equal storey height behaves same as no pounding structures. (b) at all the examined levels of the seismic demand, the local performance of the external column of the tall building that suffers the impact from the upper floor slab of the adjacent shorter structure is the most important issue in the inter-storey pounding phenomenon. (c)The taller structure suffers whiplash effect when pounds on adjacent shorter structure. Thereafter, the minimum required gap distance against pounding between the adjacent structures has been estimated taking into account two different criteria: (a) avoidance of the shear failure in the critical column that suffers the hit and (b) complete avoidance of the contact between the adjacent structures. The separation gap is evaluated at all the seismic demand levels for both pounding cases. In comparison to the IS 1893:2002 provisions the results of this study indicate less conservative separation gap distances between the adjacent structures at different levels of seismic demand.