SC upholds Chandigarh's 2023 curbs on co-owned residential properties
The public notice was issued by the administration following the Supreme Court's January 10, 2023, judgment in the Resident Welfare Association case and had subsequently survived a challenge before the Punjab and Haryana High Court
The Supreme Court has upheld the Punjab and Haryana High Court's judgment affirming the validity of the Chandigarh Administration's February 9, 2023, public notice providing, among other things, that building plans and revised building plans for residential properties will be considered only where all co-owners belong to the same family.
As the matter came up for hearing, the Supreme Court Bench led by Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant, along with Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi, observed: "In view of the judgment dated January 10, 2023, of this Court in Resident Welfare Association and another versus UT of Chandigarh and others, we are satisfied that the view taken by the High Court in the impugned judgment(s) is legally correct and calls for no interference. The appeals are, accordingly, dismissed."
Senior advocates PS Patwalia, along with counsel Bikramjit Singh Patwalia and Gauravjit S Patwalia, have all along been assisting the Bench on behalf of the Residents Welfare Association, which had objected to the UT Administration's earlier move permitting residential plots to be converted into apartments.
The public notice was issued by the administration following the Supreme Court's January 10, 2023, judgment in the Resident Welfare Association case and had subsequently survived a challenge before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Highlighting the need for striking a proper balance between sustainable development and environment protection, the Supreme Court had prohibited fragmentation/division/bifurcation/apartmentalisation of a residential unit in Phase 1 (Sector 1 to 30) of Chandigarh.
Under the notice issued pursuant to the judgment, building plans or revised building plans for residential properties would be considered only where all co-owners belonged to the same family. The notice also provided that transfers within a family through sale deeds, gift deeds, wills or inheritance would be allowed irrespective of the share held, while transfer of an entire property to a single purchaser or to multiple purchasers belonging to the same family would also be permitted irrespective of whether the existing owners were family members or strangers. It further stated that transfers and mutations in cases not covered by these decisions would not be undertaken until a final decision was taken by the Heritage Committee.
The matter was initially challenged before the high court’s then Division Bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Vikas Suri. The Bench, in February last year, dismissed four petitions against the Chandigarh Administration, which has restricted fragmentation and apartmentalisation of residential properties in line with the Supreme Court ruling on maintaining the city’s unique heritage and urban planning principles.
In one of the pleas, the petitioner was a co-owner of 30 per cent share in a co-owned property/residential house in Sector 15-B. He was seeking the quashing of the public notice imposing restrictions in line with the SC judgment.
