Pending GRUDA applications must be decided promptly, but do not preclude Section 260 action.

The petitioners purchased the residential property at A-51, Spring Meadows, South Bopal, Ahmedabad, by registered sale deed dated 30 December 2024.

On 4 June 2025, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation issued a notice under Section 260(1)(a) of the Gujarat Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949 (GPMC Act), alleging unauthorised construction and requiring a response by 9 June 2025.

The petitioners state that they replied by registered post on 5 June, but the Corporation passed an order under Section 260(2) on 10 June without giving them a personal hearing.

The petitioners applied for regularisation under the Gujarat Regularization of Unauthorised Development Act, 2022 (GRUDA) on 5 November 2025 and filed this petition the following day, challenging the notice, order, and a communication seeking disconnection of electricity.

At the hearing, they sought a direction for determination of their GRUDA application; the Corporation contended that the construction post-dated the statutory cut-off and was ineligible for regularisation.

1. Whether the Court should direct the respondent authority to decide the petitioners’ pending GRUDA application.

2. Whether the Court should determine the GRUDA application’s maintainability or the validity of the impugned proceedings under Sections 260(1) and 260(2) of the GPMC Act.

Section 260 of the GPMC Act empowers the municipal authority to take action in respect of unauthorised construction; the Court noted that the pending GRUDA application did not preclude action under that provision.

The GRUDA provides a statutory process for considering applications to regularise unauthorised development.

The Court directed that the application be decided in accordance with law, but expressed no view on its maintainability or on whether the construction fell before or after the applicable cut-off date.

No precedent was relied upon.

The petitioners’ counsel accepted that their principal grievance could be addressed by a decision on the pending GRUDA application.

Although the Corporation disputed the application’s eligibility on the ground that the construction was subsequent to the cut-off date, the Court considered it appropriate, in the circumstances, to require the authority to determine the application rather than decide that disputed question itself.

The Court left both the application’s maintainability and the challenge to the Section 260 notice and order open, and clarified that the GRUDA application did not bar the Corporation from acting under Section 260.

The Court made no determination on the application’s maintainability, the cut-off-date issue, or the validity of the notice and order under Sections 260(1) and 260(2) of the GPMC Act.

Rule was made absolute to that limited extent.