S HARMOHAN SINGH SETHI Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Notwithstanding the chequered history of litigation, the only issue that survives for consideration pertains to the petitioner's liability to pay non-construction charges-cum-ex-tension fee for the period spanning from 1988 to 2000 and again from the year 2001 to 2008. The facts may be noticed briefly. Plot No. 105, Phase-2, Urban Estate, SAS Nagar Mohali was allotted to the petitioner vide allotment letter dated 2.7.1971 (Annexure P-1), clause 6 whereof on translation reads as follows:--

(2.) According to the respondents, the petitioner was not interested in constructing the house, therefore, he did not submit or got the building plan sanctioned and failed to raise construction within three years from the date of allotment. The case of the petitioner on the other hand was that the possession of the plot was not handed over to him for a period of 7 long years after the allotment though he had deposited the entire sale consideration. No construction indeed can be raised unless possession of the plot is handed over to the allottee.

(3.) Since the respondent-Authority started levying non-construction charges/extension fee from January, 1988 onwards due to non-construction of the house to which the petitioner objected to inter alia, on the grounds that (a) no such condition was stipulated in the allotment letter dated 2.7.1971 (Annexure P-1); (b) the policy instructions for the levy of non-construction charges were issued subsequently and would not apply to the allotments already made; (c) the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development (General) Rules, 1995 etc. also came into force prospectively much after the subject allotment; and that (d) the non-construction charges were not leviable also in view of the two decisions of this Court in CWP No. 13648 of 1998, Tehal Singh v. State of Punjab and others and CWP No. 18986 of 2001, Sant Kaur Jabbi and others v. State of Punjab.