Unapproved Plots, a Running School, and a Road Alignment

The starting position. Development in a notified planning area without permission is unauthorized development under the state Town and Country Planning legislation, and the absence of permission is not cured by the passage of time or by the buyer's good faith. The 'sanction letter' shown to buyers, if it does not exist in the authority's records, points to forgery - a separate criminal matter that must be referred to the police independently of the planning decision.

Regularization is a power, not a right. It can arise only from a notified regularization scheme, an enabling government order, or a valid compounding provision, applied to a defined class of cases. Three conditions must be satisfied before any such scheme can be applied here:

1. Compatibility with the plan. Land required for the 30 m arterial road, and any land needed for public facilities, cannot be regularized; the layout must be recast with the road reservation excised and the plot count reduced accordingly.
2. Minimum infrastructure, not paper compliance. Internal road widths, drainage, water lines, open space and parking must be physically provided or a costed obligation accepted by the authority; a layout that raises building density with no drainage is a future public health liability.
3. Full cost recovery plus penalty. Betterment charges, development charges, scrutiny fee, penal interest for the unapproved period, and the cost of the infrastructure the developer should have built. A regularization that costs the authority money sets a precedent that rewards the very conduct being penalised.

Also check whether the land was agricultural and whether conversion under the state land revenue law was obtained; that is an independent bar on regularization. The exact section numbers of the enabling and penal provisions should be verified against the bare Act and the current government orders before the note is issued.

The decision should be split, not taken as one choice for 5.2 ha.

Step 1 - classify the land into three zones. (a) Land falling in the 30 m arterial road and required public facilities: no regularization possible; acquisition or relocation applies. (b) Land in plots with built houses: regularization is technically possible subject to recasting the layout. (c) Vacant plots: the cheapest cure is often a refund with interest plus a fresh, compliant layout, rather than forcing infrastructure into a failed one.

Step 2 - apply a proportionality test. Demolition of 41 occupied houses is a severe measure where the fault lies with a developer the buyers can no longer reach. The test is not 'who is innocent' but 'which measure removes the harm at least cost to the public'. The harm here is unserviced, unapproved development; that harm is removed by a compliant recast layout with infrastructure, not necessarily by demolition.

Step 3 - handle the school separately and immediately. A running school with 210 children is a public service and a safety question. Regulate it now - fire safety, structural certificate, sanitation - with a time-bound relocation plan if the plot sits on the road alignment. Closing it mid-session without a receiving school is not a planning decision, it is a failure of one.

Step 4 - sequence. Prepare the recast layout and infrastructure cost first, obtain the council's decision, and only then issue the final enforcement order, so that the order is enforceable rather than merely symbolic. Record reasons for whichever plots are excluded from regularization.

Against the developer, in priority order:

1. Criminal complaint for cheating and for use of a forged sanction document, with the fabricated letter as evidence; also action under the planning Act for unauthorized development.
2. Attachment of the developer's remaining assets and any unsold plots, so that recovery has a target; a money decree against an absconding person is worth little.
3. A civil suit for recovery of the infrastructure cost and the authority's scrutiny and enforcement expenditure.

Against the buyers: recovery should be limited to the standard regularization and infrastructure charges, computed per plot and published, with an instalment option. Buyers who purchased after the enforcement notice was published stand on a weaker footing and may be charged a higher penalty; that distinction should be stated in the scheme, not applied informally.

Institutional deterrents, which matter more than this one case:

• Publish all sanctioned layouts, with plot lists, on the authority's website and require the sanction number on every sale deed schedule, so that a forged letter can be checked in a minute.
• Mandate that registration of a plot sale in a notified planning area requires an authority verification slip; this shifts the check to the point where money changes hands.
• A statutory time limit for deciding layout applications, so that applicants cannot claim that delay forced them to build without permission.

What not to do: do not regularize first and investigate later. Once charges are accepted, the incentive to pursue the developer disappears and the precedent is set for the next 5 ha.