Punjab and Haryana High Court orders action against 4,000 illegal constructions in DLF City Gurugram

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday ordered authorities in Haryana to take action against about 4,000 unauthorized constructions in DLF City, Gurugram within two months [DLF City Residents Welfare Association and Another vs State of Haryana and Others].The Division Bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Vikas Suri found the constructions to be in clear violation of the Zoning Plan, Buildings Bye Laws and Haryana Building Code.In case such haphazard and unplanned development is not stopped, it will lead to total collapse of the infrastructure of Gurugram including potable drinking water, sewerage, air quality, transport, electricity, other common infrastructure and facilities and amenities, the Bench said.“It is amply clear that a powerful lobby of certain groups/land mafia, are ruining the very basic character of the developed colony in active connivance with the local administration/ official respondents that too only because the authorities have turned a blind eye and are permitting such illegal & unauthorised constructions / illegal developments; which are coming up at an alarming rate right under their nose,” the Court said..The order was passed on petitions moved by DLF City Residents Welfare Association and DLF-3 Voice in 2021 seeking action in furtherance of a 2018 Action Taken Report on complaints against the unauthorised constructions.It was argued that such unauthorized constructions were ruining the basic object and intent of planned development as envisaged under the various development laws. The Court was told that despite recommendation of action, the authorities were dilly dallying the matter on one pretext or another.In response, the State informed the Court that violations were found in at least 4,033 General and EWS category plots. However, the official data also revealed that action was taken in only a few cases..The High Court also found that civil courts had stayed action in many cases. Such stays were granted despite the bar on jurisdiction of civil courts under Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975, it noted.Thus, the Court ordered that the civil suits be closed immediately after providing an opportunity of hearing to all concerned.“The Civil Courts concerned, who are entertaining the civil suits qua those subject matters, in respect whereof, there is a statutory jurisdictional bar (supra), thus are directed to, after considering all the objections against the maintainability of such filed civil suits, to raise an apposite preliminary issue, and to decide the said struck preliminary issue within two months from today.”.Meanwhile, the Court recorded the statement of the real estate developer DLF that illegal constructions may have been done by the individual allottees concerned.“Therefore, at this stage, vis-a-vis the DLF no attribution can be made that after its raising purportedly unauthorized constructions, qua the said purportedly unauthorized raised constructions becoming handed over to the individual allottees concerned,” the Court said..Senior Advocates Amit Jhanji and Anand Chhibbar with advocates Eliza Gupta, Attevraj Sandhu and Karan Pathak represented the petitioners.Additional Advocates General Ankur Mittal, Svaneel Jaswal with Senior Deputy Advocate General PP Chahar, Deputy Advocates General Saurabh Mago and Gaurav Bansal along with Assistant Advocate General Karan Jindal represented the State of Haryana.Senior Advocates Randeep S Rai and Pankaj Jain with advocates Pravindra Singh Chauhan, Deepak Sabherwal, Arvind Seth, Anirudh Malhan, Kunal Dawar, Vipul Sharma, Radhika Mehta, Misha Kumar, Sachin Bhardwaj and Divya Suri represented other respondents..[Read Judgment]