HC Bars Bengaluru Civic Bodies From Demanding Land Relinquishment for OC

The High Court of Karnataka has ruled that city corporations functioning under the Greater Bengaluru Authority cannot impose new post-facto conditions requiring property owners to relinquish land for road widening in order to obtain Occupancy Certificates, if such conditions were not stipulated during the initial building plan approval.

Justice B.M. Shyam Prasad passed the order while allowing petitions filed by K.N. Venugopal and another, who challenged a communication issued on July 1, 2026, by the Assistant Director of Town Planning, Mahadevapura Zone-1 of Bengaluru East City Corporation.

The civic authority had directed the petitioners to surrender 765.46 square metres of land free of cost as a precondition for granting an Occupancy Certificate. The petitioners had constructed a building comprising a basement, ground floor, and three upper floors on a plot measuring 2,648.81 square metres in Mahadevapura. The erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike had approved the building plan in February 2024 and subsequently granted a commencement certificate.

The authority's communication stated that the property abuts a 24-metre-wide road designated to be widened to 45 metres under the Revised Master Plan 2015, requiring the owners to execute a relinquishment deed. It also directed the petitioners to consult the Assistant Executive Engineer for Transferable Development Rights and Land Acquisition if necessary.

The High Court held that post-facto conditions cannot be insisted upon without explicit statutory backing. The bench observed that neither the erstwhile BBMP Act nor the present Greater Bengaluru Governance Act contains provisions permitting authorities to demand land surrender for road widening at the time of issuing an Occupancy Certificate when such requirements were not part of the original building plan sanction.

The court emphasised that citizens cannot be deprived of their right to property without due process of law, as guaranteed under Article 300A of the Constitution of India. It ruled that applications for Occupancy Certificates must be evaluated strictly against the terms on which the original sanction was granted and whether the construction adhered to those terms.

The court directed the municipal corporation to issue the Occupancy Certificate to the petitioners within eight weeks, provided the construction conforms to the sanctioned plan, clarifying that the order does not prevent authorities from acquiring land for road widening through lawful procedures.