Bangalore Development Authority vs. R. Jayakumar & Ors.
Background
Applicants who had registered for residential plots under a 1988 notification later opted into a second, later 1988 notification with different terms after the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) couldn't allot sites under the first one. When the BDA subsequently could not deliver the specific sites promised under the second notification either, it allotted alternative sites in 1997-98 at a different price, prompting about 168 applicants to challenge this before the High Court. A Single Judge dismissed their challenge, but a Division Bench reversed him, relying on an earlier unrelated case (E.R. Manjaiah) to rule in the applicants' favour.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held the Division Bench was wrong to mechanically apply the E.R. Manjaiah precedent, because the facts were materially different, in that earlier case, allottees had already received firm allotment letters under one notification, whereas here the respondents had knowingly opted into the second notification, which only offered "proposed" sites and explicitly reserved the BDA's right to substitute sites from any future layout. Having voluntarily accepted those terms, the respondents could not later object to being allotted equivalent, non-discriminatory sites at the same price applicable to everyone under that notification. The Court restored the original decisions favouring the BDA, while giving the remaining respondents a fresh window to pay the enhanced site value with interest if they still wished to keep their allotted plots.
Lesson Learnt
When you voluntarily accept the terms and conditions of a scheme or notification, especially one that reserves flexibility for the other side, you generally cannot later invoke a more favourable precedent decided under a different scheme's different terms.