Supreme Court Orders Status Quo On Demolitions In Gurugram's DLF City

In a relief to residents of Gurugram's DLF City (Phase 1-5), the Supreme Court today ordered that status quo be maintained in respect of unauthorized constructions (more than 4000) with regard to which the Punjab and Haryana High Court recently directed authorities to take "prompt action" (within 2 months).

A bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Aravind Kumar passed the order while issuing notice on a batch of petitions filed by aggrieved residents, who were apparently not party to the proceedings before the High Court and were at risk of losing their properties without having presented their case.

"In the meantime, until the next date of listing, status quo, as it exists today, shall be maintained by the parties. In view of the order of status quo passed today, we make it clear that the petitioners shall also not raise any construction", the order read.

Reportedly, many of these residents (occupiers/owners of about 2100 units) were under imminent threat of sealing and demolition action, which was slated to begin today. The Court's interim relief restrained the coercive action until further directions.

To recap, on February 13, the High Court issued a writ of mandamus to Haryana authorities to take "prompt action" against the unauthorized constructions within 2 months. It was hearing petitions filed by DLF City Residents Welfare Association and DLF-3 Voice in 2021 seeking action in furtherance of a 2018 Action Taken Report (on complaints against the said constructions) as well as a Memo issued by District Town Planner (Enforcement) recommending that occupation certificates of owners who raised unauthorized constructions be cancelled and their electricity, water and sewerage connections be disconnected.

The High Court noted that the illegal & unauthorized constructions were in clear violation of the Zoning Plan, Building Bye Laws, 2016, Building Bye Laws, 2017 and Haryana Building Code. If the haphazard and unplanned development was not stopped, it would lead to total collapse of over infrastructure of Gurugram, including but not limited to potable drinking water, sewerage, air quality, transport, electricity and other common infrastructure, facilities and amenities.

In passing the order, the High Court also took note of local administration's involvement in allowing “land mafias” to construct unauthorized buildings which were comping up at “alarming rate". “it is amply clear that a powerful lobby of certain groups/land mafia, are ruining the very basic character of the developed colony in active connivance with the local administration/ official respondents that too only because the authorities have turned a blind eye and are permitting such illegal & unauthorised constructions / illegal developments; which are coming up at an alarming rate right under their nose", the bench stated.

Challenging the said order, a couple of petitions were filed before the Supreme Court. The petitioners contended inter-alia:

- that adverse orders were passed against them by the High Court, without giving opportunity to be heard, thus defeating the principle of natural justice;

- civil suits filed by the property owners before the trial court, wherein injunction orders were passed, were mechanically closed by the High Court;

- instead of directing blanket action against all properties, the High Court should have differentiated between compoundable and non-compoundable violations as per the guidelines laid down in Re: Directions in the matter of Demolitions of Structures;

- the possibility of proxy litigation at the behest of the developer, ie DLF Ltd., to remove EWS residents from DLF Phase V should have been investigated before issuing directions that disproportionately impacted them.

Appearance: Senior Advocates Gurinder Singh Gill, Shailendra Jain, Indira Jaising, Rakesh Khanna, Shyam Divan, Nachiketa Joshi; and Alok Kumar; Advocates PP Nayak, Kuldeep Singh Kuchaliya, Bharat Bhandari, Anuj Saxena, Anuj Ruhela, Harsh Saxena, Prakash Sharma, Rohan Jaitely, Kheyali Singh, Manish Yadav, Sai Shashank, Rohith M. Subramoniam, Smriti Shukla, Dev Pratap Shahi, Harilal S, Abhishek Dwivedi, Manan Malik, Gaurav Singla, Aditya Khanna, Manan Soni, Shubham Singh, Sudipto Sarkar, Karan Lohia, Vikas Tomar, Vanshika Sharma and Nitin Jain; AoRs Neelmani Pant, Aslam Ahmed Jamal, Aashna Gill, Aditya Singh, Kaushal Yadav and Durgesh Ramchandra Gupta

Case Title: SAHAB RAM Versus STATE OF HARYANA AND ORS, Diary No. 15281-2025 (and connected cases)

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