NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has recently said a landowner couldn't be deprived of the use of the land indefinitely.
A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan observed while setting aside an order of the Bombay High Court.
"The landowner cannot be deprived of the use of the land for years together. Once an embargo has been put on a landowner not to use the land in a particular manner, the said restriction cannot be kept open-ended for an indefinite period," it said.
The bench, while referring to Section 127 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966, said it did not make any sense to keep the plot reserved in a development plan for the last 33 years.
Not only did the authority not allow the original owners to use the land, but was also not permitting the purchasers to utilise the land now, the court said.
"The statute has provided a period of ten years to acquire the land under Section 126 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966. An additional one year is granted to the landowner to serve a notice for land acquisition prior to the amendment by Maharashtra Act 42 of 2015. Such timeline is sacrosanct and has to be adhered to by the state or by the authorities under the state," the bench said.
The top court was hearing a case in which the owners of a vacant plot had submitted a Land Development Plan for the development of 2.47 hectare.
The plan was sanctioned and the remaining area was shown to be reserved for a private school in a revised development plan under the Act, in 1993.
However, from 1993 till 2006 no action was taken by the Maharashtra authorities to acquire the property for the private school.