Allahabad HC Bars UP Housing Board From Reopening Land Transfers On Same Allegations, Orders NFS Infra’s Building-Plan And FAR Application Decided Within 8 Weeks

The petitioners received land from the Uttar Pradesh Awas Evam Vikas Parishad (the Parishad) under the applicable land-adjustment and land-pooling arrangements.

Registered sale deeds were executed in favour of the first and second petitioners; the third petitioner entered into a registered agreement with the Parishad.

After complaints alleging irregularities in the transfers, the authorities conducted successive enquiries.

Although an earlier report raised concerns about excess allotment, later enquiry reports—including a report by a committee headed by the Chief Town and Country Planner—found no illegality in the allotments.

The Parishad declined the first petitioner’s application for additional FAR and consequential building-plan approval, citing the unresolved enquiry.

The petitioners challenged the relevant Board resolutions and, in the third petitioner’s case, also sought consideration of its building-plan application.

Article 14 of the Constitution requires State authorities to act fairly, reasonably and consistently; administrative power to enquire does not permit repeated reopening of a concluded matter without fresh material or legally sustainable justification.

Section 92 of the U.P. Avas Evam Vikas Parishad Adhiniyam, 1965 empowers the State Government to direct the Board and requires the Board to comply, as noted in the Parishad’s submissions.

The Government Order dated 22.10.2002 governs adjustment of land belonging to registered housing co-operative societies, while the Policy dated 04.03.2014 provides for land pooling and an allocation to landowners subject to its terms.

The Court also relied on the principle of legitimate expectation: an authority that has acted under an applicable policy and completed a transfer must deal fairly with consequential applications, though this does not create an entitlement contrary to statute.

The Court referred to Ashyana Sahkari Awas Samiti Ltd. v. State of U.P., Writ-C No. 48641 of 2007, for the requirement that cooperative societies’ entitlements be assessed under the applicable policy.

Development permissions and FAR remain subject to applicable planning regulations and statutory requirements.

The Parishad had completed the transfers through registered instruments, and the successive enquiries had not established illegality, fraud or another basis for invalidating them; the adverse report was contradicted by later enquiry findings.

In those circumstances, keeping the transfers under repeated scrutiny and using that scrutiny to defer development applications indefinitely was arbitrary and inconsistent with Article 14.

The Court distinguished entitlement to the transferred land from the technical assessment of a layout plan or FAR: the latter remained for the competent authority to determine under planning rules, but could not be withheld merely because of the same unsubstantiated allegations concerning the original transfers.

It declared the repeated enquiries, and the consequent withholding of consideration of the development applications, arbitrary and unsustainable; directed the respondents not to reopen the petitioners’ land entitlements on the basis of allegations already examined without substantiation; and ordered the Parishad to decide the relevant layout-plan and permissible-FAR applications on their merits under applicable planning laws, within eight weeks of production of a certified copy of the judgment.

The Parishad must communicate any technical or statutory deficiencies by a reasoned order and allow their correction where legally permissible.

The Court did not itself grant additional FAR or approve a layout plan, and clarified that the judgment dispensed with no lawful statutory permission, charge or other requirement.