Formulate Scheme Addressing Unauthorized Constructions In Residential, Commercial & Industrial Areas: Allahabad HC To UP Govt

A bench of Justice Attau Rahman Masoodi and Justice Subhash Vidyarthi also asked the State Government about its plans to deal with unauthorised constructions, apart from the state's compounding process.

In its order, the division bench clarified that compounding buildings would not be permitted if they altered the foundational structure of the sanctioned plans.

Additionally, the Court stressed that wherever a structure has been raised to the plinth level deviating from the sanctioned plans, a necessary survey should be conducted to address the matter sternly.

These directions were issued in a PIL plea in 2012 by Lieutenant Colonel Ashok Kumar (Retired) concerning the illegal constructions raised in Lucknow, in which the Lucknow Development Authority took no action.

In the last 13 years, this PIL plea has also tagged many other petitions raising similar issues.

Hearing the pleas in January this year, the High Court sought the Principal Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Planning, U.P. Lucknow, to file his affidavit detailing the measures it would propose to initiate for dealing with the unauthorized constructions relating to which orders have already been passed.

The Court had also sought an explanation as to how such large-scale constructions have been raised going unnoticed by the development authorities.

Though an affidavit was filed before the bench, the court found it dissatisfactory, and hence, it returned the same to the learned Standing Counsel for filing a better affidavit.