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Residents Welfare Association vs The Union Territory of Chandigarh

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 22Decided 10 Jan 2023
Civil Appeal No. 274 of 2023
B.R. Gavai · B.V. Nagarathna · M.M. Sundresh

Background

Chandigarh was designed by Le Corbusier as a low-rise city; its northern Phase-I sectors are recognised as "Corbusian Chandigarh" with heritage value. Statutory rules since 1960 (Rule 14 of the 1960 Rules, now Rule 16 of the 2007 Estate Rules) prohibit fragmentation of any site or building, and the 2001 Apartment Rules that had briefly allowed sub-division were repealed in 2007 after public outcry; the Chandigarh Master Plan 2031 also dropped any provision for apartments after a Board of Inquiry recommended it. Despite this, developers were buying single-dwelling plots, building three floors, and selling each floor to a different buyer as a "share" of the property with a Memorandum of Understanding giving each co-owner exclusive use of one floor. A residents' association filed a public interest petition in 2016. The Punjab and Haryana High Court accepted that apartmentalisation is prohibited, but held that floor-wise share sales did not amount to it, and limited itself to directing public-warning notices for home buyers. The association appealed.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the appeals. It held that the floor-wise "share" sale with an MoU allocating separate floors to strangers was plainly a device to convert one dwelling unit into three apartments -- doing indirectly what the rules forbid directly -- and that the Chandigarh Administration was "blindly sanctioning" building plans that showed this on their face, without any study of the impact on traffic, parking or the city's heritage character. Reading Rule 14 of the 1960 Rules, Rule 16 of the 2007 Rules and the repeal of the 2001 Rules together, the Court declared that fragmentation, division, bifurcation or apartmentalisation of a residential unit in Phase-I of Chandigarh is prohibited. Exercising powers under Article 142, it directed the Chandigarh Heritage Conservation Committee to examine the question of redensification in Phase-I (bearing in mind its own recommendation that the northern sectors be preserved in their present form), after which any amendment to the Master Plan and building rules must go to the Central Government for final approval. Until then, the Administration may not sanction any building plan that appears designed to create three separate apartments, no MoU among co-owners for floor-wise division may be registered or enforced, the floor-area ratio is frozen, buildings are capped at three floors with a uniform height set by the Heritage Committee, and no new rules may be framed without consulting the Heritage Committee and obtaining Central approval. The Court also urged legislatures and governments nationwide to require Environmental Impact Assessment studies before permitting urban development, citing Bengaluru's experience of unplanned growth, and directed that the judgment be sent to the Cabinet Secretary and all Chief Secretaries.

Lesson Learnt

A legal prohibition cannot be evaded by clever paperwork -- selling "shares" in a house with a side-agreement giving each buyer one floor is still an illegal apartment conversion where sub-division is banned, and buyers of such floors get no recognised ownership of their floor. Heritage and environmental considerations are part of lawful urban planning, and planning authorities must apply the rules they themselves have framed.

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

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