The Gujarat High Court has ruled that once a designated authority regulates or rejects an unauthorised construction after accepting an impact fee, it lacks the jurisdiction to review or revoke its own decision.
The dispute being that the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has initially regularised unauthorised commercial constructions, a portion of the ground floor and parking area at Swastik Complex in Maninagar in 2015 under the Gujarat Regularisation of Unauthorised Development Act, 2011 (GRUDA) initially.
A petition was filed by Unnati Shah and others that the construction was built after the legal cut-off date on March 28, 2011. The AMC issued an order in 2018, cancelling the regularisation and issuing a demolition order.
The current property owners, who purchased the shops and cellar through the registered sale deeds in 2016, challenged the AMC’s action.
The owners were then quickly followed by a demolition notice under the Gujarat Provincial Municipal Corporation Act. The property owners then moved to the Gujarat High Court. Justice Niral Mehta quashed the AMC’s cancellation order, clarifying the limits of statutory power under GRUDA.
The HC said, “The order under Section 6(3) having been passed upon such scrutiny, the subsequent invocation of Section 8(4) by the Designated Authority for cancelling or revoking the very order of regularisation is, in the considered opinion of this court, wholly misconceived and dehors the powers conferred under the Act.”
Hence, the high court concluded that the law only provided a statutory remedy of appeal for applicants whose requests are rejected, and does not authorize the AMC to gather fresh evidence to reassess or overturn its finalised regularisations.
Sourced from Ahmedabad Mirror.
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