The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has gone ahead with demolishing structures built on stormwater drains on the basis of topographical details in century-old village maps.
A High Court ruling makes it clear that these geographical details do not hold good if they are missing in the Bangalore Development Authority’s (BDA) master plan. The High Court had given the ruling on February 10, 2012, on a writ petition filed by Sobha Developers against the BBMP. The company had sought permission for road-cutting from the BBMP for laying cables for its project at Nagasandra, north Bengaluru. The permission was denied on the grounds that the developer had put up construction on a nala (stormwater drain) and pathway as shown in the village map.
Justice B S Patil ruled against the BBMP. “As rightly contended by the counsel for the petitioner, once the master plan is prepared indicating the existence of roads, drains, streets, etc, and particularly the planning authority at an undisputed point of time has prepared a sketch of the lands wherein no such passage of nala in the middle of the property or the existence of pathway therein was shown, it is not open for the corporation (BBMP) at such a belated stage to raise an objection solely based on the village map to contend that the existing nala was deviated by the petitioner.” The judge further noted, “The reasons assigned in the impugned endorsement to deny the permission for road cutting are legally untenable...”
Justice Patil directed the BBMP to give permission to Sobha Developers for road-cutting to lay underground cables in accordance with law, “expeditiously.” The BBMP chose not to appeal the High Court ruling. Cut to 2016. As the BBMP moved ahead to demolish structures on drains, it relied on village maps, not the master plan. Interestingly, the BDA’s master plan regulation states, “In case the buffer has not been marked due to cartographical error for any of the above types of drains, then based on the revenue records, buffer shall be insisted in all such cases without referring the land use plan while according approval for building / development / layout plan.”
A senior official in the BBMP’s legal cell said on the condition of anonymity, “We had sought legal opinion in this (Sobha Developers) case and the legal advisor stated that the village map loses its value once the master plan comes into effect. Hence, we decided not to pursue the matter further.”
He, however, stressed that it was not right to blame the BBMP when the planning body (BDA) itself meddled with revenue records. “For us (BBMP), the master plan is our holy book for sanctioning the building plan and not the village maps. It is the BDA, which should be blamed for the flaws and not the BBMP,” the officer maintained.
Published 11 August 2016, 20:16 IST