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Pune Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (PMRDA) v. Prakash Harkachand Parakh & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 174Decided 10 Mar 2021
Civil Appeal No. 845 of 2021
Justice Indu Malhotra · Justice Ajay Rastogi

Background

A landowner developing a residential layout near Pune had been granted non-agricultural use and building-plan approvals on the express condition that a 12-metre-wide internal road in the layout be kept open for use by the general public and neighbouring landowners. When the developer resisted, PMRDA (the planning authority) directed that the road be opened to the public. The developer challenged this in the Bombay High Court, which, while the writ petition was still pending, passed an interim order allowing the road to be used by the public only between 5:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m., with gates/barriers permitted at other times. PMRDA appealed to the Supreme Court against this interim arrangement.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court's interim order effectively granted final relief to the developer, restricting what had been an unconditional public-access condition, without finally deciding the writ petition on merits. It held this exceeded the High Court's jurisdiction under Article 226, reiterating the settled principle that an interim order should not, in substance, grant the final relief sought in the main proceeding. The Court quashed the High Court's interim order of 4 October 2019 and allowed the appeal, while directing that the underlying writ petition be decided independently, on its own merits, without being influenced by the Supreme Court's observations.

Lesson Learnt

Conditions attached to statutory planning/building permissions (such as keeping roads open for public use) are binding and cannot be diluted by a court through an interim order; courts must decide such disputes finally on merits rather than fashioning what is effectively a final compromise at the interim stage.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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