Top court issues guidelines to curb illegal constructions

Banks and financial institutions can’t sanction loans against any building as a security without verifying its completion or occupation certificate and electricity, water and sewerage connections shall be given by service providers only after the production of such a certificate, the Supreme Court has ordered.

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Issuing pan-India guidelines “in the larger public interest” to check illegal constructions, a Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan said, “No permission/licence to conduct any business/trade must be given by the authorities, including local bodies of states/UTs in any unauthorised building irrespective of it being a residential or commercial building.”

It said the builder/applicant had to give an undertaking to the effect that possession of the building would be handed over to the buyers only after obtaining completion or occupation certificate from the authorities concerned.

“Unauthorised constructions, apart from posing a threat to the life of the occupants and the citizens living nearby, also have an effect on resources like electricity, ground water and access to roads, which are primarily designed to be made available in orderly development and authorised activities,” it said, upholding an the Allahabad High Court’s December 2014 order for the demolition of certain illegal constructions in Meerut.

Noting that unauthorised constructions have to be curtailed with iron hands and any lenience would amount to showing misplaced sympathy to them, the Bench said violation of any of these directions would lead to initiation of contempt proceedings in addition to the prosecution under respective laws.

“We are of the opinion that construction(s) put up in violation of or deviation from the building plan approved by the local authority and the constructions which are audaciously put up without any building planning approval cannot be encouraged. Each and every construction must be made scrupulously following and strictly adhering to the rules,” the Bench said.

Officers responsible for the issuance of wrongful completion or occupation certificate shall be proceeded departmentally forthwith, it said.

Writing the judgment for the Bench, Justice Mahadevan made it clear that the “delay in directing rectification of illegalities, administrative failure, regulatory inefficiency, cost of construction and investment, negligence and laxity on the part of the authorities concerned in performing their obligation(s) under the Act, cannot be used as a shield to defend action taken against the illegal constructions”.

The verdict came more than a month after the top court declared “bulldozer justice” unconstitutional and said the executive could not demolish the residential and commercial properties of persons only on the ground that they were accused or convicted of a crime.