Prepare Disaster Management Plan For Residential Areas Situated At River Banks: High Court To Haryana Govt

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has directed the Haryana Government to prepare a scientific disaster management plan for the residential areas situated at the river banks, observing that the Court is under a "constitutional duty to ensure the safety concerns."

Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Vikas Suri said, "A team of experts becoming deployed to prepare a scientific disaster management plan, thus for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the thickly inhabited localities, which exist on the banks of all the rivers flowing within the State of Haryana."

The Court further said that the State may proceed to impose reasonable cesses upon the residents concerned, so that therebys some corpus of funds, thus is created to construct concrete bandhs, so as to decimate, the ill consequences of inundations taking place, on account of swelling of all rivers, which flow within the State of Haryana.

It added that, "from the upstreams of the rivers, where there is no population, thus diversions becoming created, so that thereafters there is a reduction in the volume of water in the rivers, which flow in the State of Haryana, wherebys but naturally there would ensue the required balancings inter se the safety concerns of the inhabitants vis-a-vis the right of the developers concerned, whose properties exist on the banks of the rivers concerned, and, qua utilization whereofs they have a statutory right."

The case pertains to a dispute concerning the development of a residential colony on land adjacent to the Tangri River in Haryana's Ambala. The petitioner applied for a license to develop the land, but the authorities rejected the application, citing concerns over potential flooding. The plea challenged  reclassification of the land from "residential" to "agricultural" in the Final Development Plan 2025 for Ambala, prompting the petitioner to challenge the decision.

After examining the submissions, the Court found that the authorities had not conducted a proper scientific study before classifying the land as flood-prone. The Court took note of report prepared by IIT Rookie's Professor Z. Ahmed which  suggested that flooding in the area was seasonal and not a recurring phenomenon that warranted an absolute construction ban.

"The respondent State is a welfare state, wherebys hence within the ambit of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, it becomes encumbered with a constitutional duty rather to ensure the protection of the lives and properties of its citizens," observed the Court.

It added further that the Haryana Government owns the waters of the River Tangri. Therefore, it is also the responsibility of Haryana to prevent the water from rising and causing harm to the land along its banks.

 Dr. Pankaj Nanhera, Advocate with Mr. Rahul Gautam, Advocate and Mr. Yogesh Vashista, Advocate for the petitioners.

Mr. Ankur Mittal, Addl. A.G., Haryana with Mr. Pardeep Prakash Chahar, Sr. DAG, Haryana and Mr. Saurabh Mago, DAG, Haryana.

Mr. Sunil K. Dhanda, Advocate for respondent No. 8.

Mr. Ashish Rawal, Advocate for respondent No. 9.

Title: Maharishi Markandeshwar Developers Private Ltd v.State of Haryana and others

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (PH) 92

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