SHAUKAT ALI Vs. ALLAHABAD DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two writ petitions are being disposed off by a common judgment. Heard learned counsel for the parties.

(2.) These two writ petitions as well as several similar writ petitions listed today before us disclose how the local authorities in the State are demanding and realizing illegal amounts from the citizens causing immense harassment and hardship to the common man.

(3.) What is happening in Allahabad and other cities of the State is that whenever a citizen wants to make a building on his own land he has to apply for sanction of a map under section 15 of the U.P. Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), and whenever such application for sanction of a map is made the Allahabad Development authority immediately sends a bill to the applicant demanding exorbitant amounts before sanction of the map. These bills have been challenged in these two writ petitions and in several others connected writ petitions and a perusal of the same shows that almost all these demands are illegal (as will be presently demonstrated). However unless these amounts are paid the map is not sanctioned or released, causing great harassment to the applicant. Thus the Allahabad Development Authority, as well as other Development Authorities in the State, which have been constituted under the Act have become agencies of harassment to the public instead of being agencies of service to the people.