Gunabai Devram Matale And Ors. vs Nashik Municipal Corporation And Ors.

CNR No : HCBM010079342007

Digitally
signed by
MANALI
PRASANNA
TILAK
Date:
2026.11.04
16:55:33
+0530
MANALI
PRASANNA
TILAK
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
WRIT PETITION NO. 2377 OF 2007
Gunabai Devram Matale and ors .. Petitioners
Versus
Nashik Municipal Corporation and .. Respondents
ors
…
Dr. Virendra Tulzapurkar with Mr.R.D. Soni i/b V.R. Kasle, Ram
& Co. for the petitioners.
Mr.Atul Damle, Sr. Advocate with Rupesh Lanjekar for the
respondent Nashik Municipal Corporation.
Mrs.Apurva Thipsay, ‘B’ Panel Counsel for the State.
CORAM : BHARATI DANGRE &
ASHISH S. CHAVAN, JJ
nd
DATED : 22 OCTOBER, 2026
JUDGMENT:- (Per Bharati Dangre, J)
1. The petition having been admitted on 4/12/2007, the
Division Bench granted interim relief in favour of the
petitioners by recording thus :-
“2 So far as the question of interim relief is concerned, it
prima facie appears that notice under section 127 of the
MRTP Act was duly delivered and therefore, it prima facie
appears that the land is released from the reservation. The
petitioners are willing to develop the land at their own risk
and also do not want to claim any equity on the basis of the
development at the final hearing.
3. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the
Corporation, however, states that the tentative layout plan,
that is alleged to have been submitted by the petitioners, has
not actually been received.
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4. Taking an overall view of the matter, therefore, in our
opinion the following interim order will meet the ends of
justice.
O R D E R
(i) Within a period of one week from today, the
petitioners, without prejudice to their contention that the
layout plan was duly submitted to the Corporation, shall
submit a layout plan to Mrs. Vaizapurkar, Assistant Director
of Town Planning, Nashik Municipal Corporation and,
thereafter, that layout plan will be scrutinized in accordance
with law. While considering the layout plan, the Corporation
shall assume, without prejudice to their rights and
contentions in this Petition, that the reservation has lapsed.
On the layout plan being sanctioned, the petitioners shall be
at liberty to develop the land in accordance with the
sanctioned layout plan.
(ii) The sanction to the layout plan shall be subject to the
result of this Petition and the Corporation shall be
sanctioning the layout plan without prejudice to their rights
and contentions in this Petition.
(iii) If any development is carried out during the pendency
of this Petition on the land by the Petitioners, the Petitioners
shall be doing it at their own risk and shall not be entitled to
claim any equities on the basis of the development at the
final hearing of this Petition.
(iv) The petitioners shall also not be entitled to create any
third party rights in the land or in the development carried
on the land without seeking leave of this Court.”
2. On completion of the pleadings, we have taken up the
petition for hearing.
We have learned senior counsel Dr. Virendra Tulzapurkar
for the petitioner and learned senior counsel Mr. Atul Damle for
the Corporation, whereas the State is represented by Mrs.
Apurva Thipsay, the learned Government Advocate.
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3. The petitioners claim to be the owners and therefore, fully
entitled to a plot bearing Survey No. 2(p)-5/1 to 16-29/1B/2B,
44/2, 44/6, 44/7, 44/8, 44/9, 45/1 admeasuring about 33500
sq.meters.
On 28/06/1993, the Development Plan (DP) was
sanctioned for Nashik City and it came into operation with
effect from 16/11/1993. The land of the petitioners, bearing
Survey Nos. 29(p), 44(p), 45(p), 2(p) and 5(p) situated at
Kamatwada, Nashik, admeasuring 33500 sq.meters was shown
to be reserved for “Garden” under designated reservation
no.39.
4. In terms of the provision of Section 127 of the
Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 (for short
‘MRTP Act, 1966) if any land reserved or designated for any
purpose specified in the plan is not acquired within ten years
from the date on which the development plan came into force,
and if the proceedings for its acquisition under the Land
acquisition Act are not commenced, the owner or any person
interested in the land is entitled to serve a notice to the
Authority concerned, to the effect that if the land is not
acquired and/or no steps are commenced for its acquisition,
the reservation shall be deemed to have lapsed.
In furtherance of the same, the petitioner issued purchase
notice under Section 127 of MRTP Act, 1966 on 24/03/2004,
calling upon the Nashik Municipal Corporation to acquire or
purchase the said land for implementation of the reservation. It
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is the contention of the petitioners that the Corporation duly
received the notice and acknowledged its receipt under Inward
No.790 dated 24/03/2024.
Since steps to acquire the said land as stipulated under
Section 127 were not initiated by the planning authority or the
acquiring body within six months, it is the case of the
petitioners that the reservation is deemed to have been lapsed
on 20/11/2006.
5. In the wake of the aforesaid development, a layout plan
was submitted by the petitioners for sanction to the
Corporation in accordance with the provisions of the
Development Plan, which was acknowledged by issuing receipt
on 20/11/2006. The petitioners also paid the scrutiny fee for
the said layout, and a receipt of the said payment is also
included as a part of the petition.
6. The present writ petition (Writ Petition No. 2377/2007) is
filed by the petitioner on 04/04/2007 as the layout application
was not processed by the Corporation, and a writ of mandamus
was prayed, directing the Corporation to treat the reservation
as ‘lapsed’ and to consider and sanction the layout proposal, on
the basis that the reservation no longer prevail.
7. The petition has received a response from the Nashik
Municipal Corporation, through the affidavit in reply filed by
Shri Sanjeev Yashwant Pawar, Executive Engineer. The
Corporation adopted a specific stand in the said affidavit in
opposing the reliefs in the petition by stating thus :-
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(i) The notice was not issued to the Commissioner.
(ii) The Corporation did not have any office of the Town
Planning Department at Satpur.
(iii) The Corporation did not have the rubber stamp of
which the impression was made on the said
notice.
(iv) The rubber stamp impression did not bear the
signature of the receiving clerk.
(v) The acknowledgment produced by the petitioner
was allegedly fabricated and
(vi) The notice issued was invalid, since the same was
not issued by the owners or the person interested
in the land in question.
8. On 06/7/2007, another affidavit is filed by the Deputy
Director, Town Planning, Nashik Division, stating that the
provisions of Section 45 of the MRTP Act, as regards deemed
sanction would not apply as the Department has adopted a
stand that the purchase notice was never received by it.
This was followed by a rejoinder filed by the petitioner
no.36 - Rohit Gopal Wavare on 23/07/2007, where the
allegations levelled in the affidavit filed on behalf of the
Corporation of fabrication through rubber stamp impression is
denied. It was specifically reiterated in the affidavit that the
purchase notice was inwarded at the main office of the
Corporation at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan, since the property was
situated at Kamatwada, which comes under CIDCO, Satpur
Division, and the stamp of CIDCO, Satpur Division was affixed
when the acknowledgment was passed. The petitioners also
annexed other documents showing the identical stamps put to
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use by the Corporation, which was now sought to be disputed.
9. A specific affidavit is filed before us, by Shri Shankarrao
Punjaji Matale, an Advocate stating that he had sent legal
notice under Section 127 of the MRTP Act, 1966 on behalf of
the land owner, Gunabai Devram Matale and other 42 persons
to the Nashik Municipal Corporation. In the affidavit affirmed
on 20/07/2007, he specifically depose thus:
“I have sent legal notice under Section 127 of MRTP Act 1966
as an advocate for the land owner, Gunabai Devram Matale,
and other 42 persons to Nashik Municipal Corporation, Nashik.
The said notice has been served by me personally in the office
of Nashik Municipal Corporation, Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan Nashik,
on 24/03/2004. The said notice has been acknowledged by the
concerned Department of Nashik Municipal Corporation at
Inward No. 790 on 24/03/2004. The said notice having
enclosures in form of all 7/12 extracts, site plan of DP Map,
General Power of Attorney (GPA) in favour of Narayan
Dhondiram Matale, executed by some of the land owners,
alongwith U.L.C map. The said notice has been properly served
on Corporation, and the said has been received by Nashik
Municipal Corporation Authorities.”
10. Controverting the aforesaid contention, affidavits were
filed by one Prashant Sawant and Kailas Darade on behalf of
the Corporation, deposing that the purchase notice was not
received by the Corporation and the signature appearing on the
acknowledgment was not genuine.
This resulted in an order passed on 04/12/2007, which
we have already reproduced above, when Rule was issued and
a prima facie finding is recorded that notice under Section 127
was duly served and that the land was released from
reservation and a direction was issued to the Corporation to
sanction the plan subject to the result of the petition.
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11. Being aggrieved by the aforesaid order, the Nashik
Municipal Corporation approached the Apex Court by filing
Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) No.(s) 5285/2008 and on
9/9/2011, the following order was passed:
“We have heard Shri Shivaji M. Jadhav, learned counsel
appearing for the petitioners and Dr. A.M. Singhvi, learned
senior counsel appearing for the respondents and are of the
view that the ends of justice will be met by requesting the High
Court to make an endeavour to decide the Writ Petition at an
early date.
The special leave petition is accordingly disposed of with the
request to the High Court to make an effort to decide the Writ
Petition as early as possible but latest within six months.
We further direct that till the disposal of the Writ Petition,
interim order dated 10.03/2008 passed by this Court shall
remain operative.”
12. In light of the aforesaid, we have taken up the Petition for
consideration, though definitely after a considerable delay.
Learned Senior Advocate Mr.Tulzapurkar representing the
petitioners would refer to several subsequent events and this
include a communication addressed by the Section Officer of
the Urban Development Department to the Commissioner,
Nashik Municipal Corporation, requesting for forwarding to the
State Government the copy of the representation dated
07/05/2016 preferred by Shri Rohit Gopalrao Wavare and
others, along with its report. Since there was no compliance of
the direction on 17/5/2016, another letter was addressed to
the Deputy Director, Town Planning, Nashik on 23/05/2016,
again reiterating the demand of forwarding the report of the
Nashik Municipal Corporation in regards to the notices issued
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under Section 127(2) and one of the matter was that of the
petitioner, Rohit Wavare and 41 others, in respect of Survey No.
29, 44 and 45 at Kamatwada, which was shown under
reservation 39-Garden.
The information prepared in a tabular form in relation to
the proceedings which were pending before the Urban
Development Department, pursuant to the application filed
under Section 127(2) since the reserved land was not acquired
during the prescribed time, the detailed information was set
out, which included the case of Rohit Wavare and 41 others at
Item No. 6. In the column setting out the date when the period
prescribed for acquisition has come to an end, the date is set
out as 23/9/2004 in respect of lands in Survey No.29, 44 and
45 of Kamatwada, which was shown reserved for ‘Garden’.
13. In the remarks column, with reference to Writ Petition No.
2377 of 2007 and the direction issued by the High Court on
4/12/2007, it is stated that the applicant filed a layout
application on 15/12/2007, but it was neither sanctioned nor
refused. From the letter of the Land Acquisition Officer dated
26/05/2016, the applicants were informed, on perusal of the
record that no proposal for acquisition of their property was
received.
With the aforesaid communications being addressed, the
Assistant Director, Town Planning forwarded the
communication to the Assistant Director, Town Planning
Corporation, requesting for a report to be forwarded, and it is
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ultimately on 3/6/2016, the Town Planner, Nashik Municipal
Corporation forwarded its report to the Assistant Director of
Town Planning, in regards to the proposals which were pending
before the State Government under Section 127.
The said report included the case of Reservation No. 39,
Kamatwada, and it specifically offered the information that out
of the reserved area, TDR in form of 3562.00 square meters and
area of 4026.00 for DP Road is granted on 21/3/2007. It is
also stated that Smt.Gunabai Devram Matale and 41 others,
through Advocate Shri Shankar Rao Matale, had issued a
purchase notice under Section 127 on 24/3/2004 for an area
admeasuring 10745.00 square meters. The report further
record that from the record available with the Land Acquisition
Officer, it is evident that no proposal for land acquisition is
initiated.
The aforesaid communication is followed by the letter
from the Town Planning and Valuation Department, Nashik,
dated 20/06/2016, addressed to the Director, Town Planning
and Valuation, Maharashtra State, Pune, with reference to Writ
Petition No. 2377 of 2007 filed by the petitioners, in respect of
Reservation No. 39, and in the wake of it’s cancellation, it being
reflected ‘in the residential zone’.
14. With reference to the representation preferred by Shri
Rohit Gopalrao Wavare and others on 17/05/2016, and with
reference to the reports that had been forwarded earlier, the
report was prepared based on the stand adopted by the Nashik
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Municipal Corporation, which reflected that a notice was issued
on 24/03/2004 by the land owners, under Section 127 of the
MRTP Act, and no steps were taken for acquisition of the said
land.
With reference to the order passed by the High Court on
04/12/2007, the necessary information was forwarded as
regards the purchase notice and in column No. 9, it is indicated
that the said notice u/s.127 of the MRTP Act is received by the
Corporation on 24/3/2004. However, the actual area under the
said notice is reflected as 29,442 square meters. In column No.
12, as to whether Nashik Municipal Corporation has taken any
steps for acquisition of the property in respect of which the
notice was issued, the response is in the negative, and it is
recorded that there is no proposal forwarded for acquisition of
the said land.
15. In column No. 14, titled as “whether the reservation has
lapsed”, by referring to the provision of Section 127 of the
MRTP Act 1966, where a provision is made, that if the purchase
notice is issued and within period of 6 months, if the land is not
acquired, or if no steps are taken for its acquisition, the
reservation is deemed to have been lapsed and the land stands
released of the said reservation, which is then available to the
owner for the purpose of development, permissible in the case
of adjacent land under the relevant plan. It was clearly
indicated that in the wake of the purchase notice dated
24/03/2004, survey numbers mentioned therein, covering an
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area of 30,000 square metres, the Reservation No. 39, Garden,
has lapsed.
16. From the aforesaid documents, which emanates from the
Corporation itself being forwarded to the Town Planning
Department, Maharashtra State, Pune, on 20/06/2016, Mr.
Tulzapurkar is perfectly justified in submitting that the
conundrum as to whether 127 notice is received by the
Corporation or not, is no longer an issue for consideration, as
the Corporation itself has admitted that the purchase notice
under Section 127 on behalf of the petitioners was received on
24/03/2004, and since no steps were taken for its acquisition,
the Reservation for Garden under Reservation No.39 has
already lapsed.
In addition to the aforesaid documents, Dr. Tulzapurkar
has placed before us the objection raised by the petitioners
before the Competent Authority on 22/07/2015, which resulted
in a hearing being conducted where it is noted that 127 notice
is received and the reservation stands cancelled.
17. We have perused the compilation of documents placed
before us, which include a notice issued by the petitioners by
invoking the provision of Section 127 of the MRTP Act, the
notice being addressed to the Commissioner, Nashik Municipal
Corporation on behalf of 42 petitioners, Smt. Gunabai Devram
Matale, being the first name mentioned in the notice.
The notice clearly set out the ingredients of Section 127,
qua the property set out therein, admeasuring 30,000 square
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meters, which was shown reserved for ‘Garden’ by Reservation
No. 39. The notice indicated that the reservation was declared
on 16/11/1993 when the Development Plan came into effect,
and a period of more than 10 years has elapsed, since the land
was shown to be reserved. The notice was therefore issued
under Section 127 of the Act, informing that despite the lapse
of a period of 10 years from the Development Plan coming into
force, the land under reservation has not been acquired, nor
any steps have been taken for its acquisition, and therefore the
notice stated that if within a period of 6 months, the land is not
acquired or the procedure for acquisition is not initiated, the
reservation of DP Road/garden shall lapse, and the land shall
then become free of reservation.
The notice has the following stamp endorsed:-
NASHIK MUNICIPAL CORPORATION
Town Planning Dept.
CIDCO/SATPUR Division
Inward No. 790
Date 24/03/2004.
The inward number and date is handwritten, and based
on this, the Division Bench prima facie expressed that the
notice is received by the Corporation, and when the Nashik
Municipal Corporation approached the Apex Court, by
continuing the interim order dated 10/03/2008, the High Court
was directed to decide the Writ Petition.
Between the date when the interim order was passed by
this Court on 04/12/2007 and the date on which the order was
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passed by the Supreme Court on 09/09/2011 and today's date,
when the petition came up for hearing before us, we have
taken note of the developments which is reflected through
communications/reports submitted by the Town Planning and
Valuation Department of the Corporation, clearly indicating that
the issue whether the purchase notice under Section 127 was
received by the Corporation or not, no longer remains an issue,
as it is clearly admitted through the said letters that the notice
under Section 127 on behalf of the petitioners was received by
the Corporation on 24/03/2004.
Not only this, it is also admitted clearly that no steps were
taken for acquisition of the property of the petitioners within a
period of 6 months, which was the stipulated period under
Section 127 at the relevant time. An inference is also clearly
drawn and recorded in the reports that the consequence of not
taking any steps within a period of 6 months from the date of
receipt of the notice, has resulted into the reservation deemed
to have lapsed.
18. Learned senior counsel, Mr. Damle appearing for the
Corporation has pressed into service Section 136 of the MRTP
Act, which is a provision of service of notice, and according to
it, in absence of the said procedure being followed, it cannot be
said that the notice was duly served. He feebly attempted to
justify the stand adopted by the Corporation, in its affidavit
about the fraud being played upon the Corporation by
fabricating the stamp reflecting acknowledgment, and he would
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rely upon the affidavits filed by the clerks, stating on oath that
the purchase notice was never received in the Corporation.
In our view, in light of the clear-cut communication by the
Town Planning and Valuation Department, Nashik addressed to
the Town Planning and Valuation Department of Maharashtra
State, Pune, there is no scope for us to refer to any of such
letter/communications, once it is admitted that the purchase
notice under Section 127 on behalf of the Petitioners was
received, and no steps were taken to acquire the land under the
said notice. In such circumstances, the consequences prescribed
under Section 127 shall follow, i.e. the land in regards to which
the purchase notice was issued shall be deemed to be released
from the reservation and it shall become available to the owner
for the purpose of development or otherwise, permissible in the
case of adjacent land under the relevant plan. Therefore, in our
view, the rule issued by this Court on 04/12/2017 deserves to
be made absolute, by confirming the prima facie finding that
the land stands released from the reservation and the
petitioners are permitted to develop their land.
19. For the aforesaid reasons, the writ petition is made
absolute.
No order as to costs.
(ASHISH S. CHAVAN, J) (BHARATI DANGRE, J.)
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