Punjab Reverses GMADA's Dues Relief On A Sector Sixty Two Site: How The Revision Route Works पंजाब ने सेक्टर बासठ की साइट पर GMADA की बकाया राहत पलटी: रिविज़न का रास्ता कैसे काम करता है ਪੰਜਾਬ ਨੇ ਸੈਕਟਰ ਬਾਹਠ ਦੀ ਸਾਈਟ ’ਤੇ GMADA ਦੀ ਬਕਾਇਆ ਰਾਹਤ ਪਲਟੀ: ਰਿਵੀਜ਼ਨ ਦਾ ਰਾਹ ਕਿਵੇਂ ਕੰਮ ਕਰਦਾ ਹੈ

A Mohali allotment dispute that began with a food court site auctioned in Sector Sixty Two has reached the final rung of GMADA's appeal ladder. According to a report in The New Indian Express on the seventeenth of October, the Punjab Department of Housing and Urban Development has withdrawn concessions worth nearly forty crore rupees that GMADA had granted to the allottee, a Delhi based builder. The report credits its account to sources and to a written order. For anyone who holds a GMADA plot or site on instalments, the case shows how the appeal and revision route in the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act works when dues fall behind.

What the report says was decided

The New Indian Express reports that the principal secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department, acting as the revisional authority, passed an order dated the fifteenth of October. The order, which the report describes as nineteen pages long, dismissed the company's revision petition.

It also rescinded an order of the fifth of February this year passed by GMADA's appellate authority, who is an additional chief administrator. It reversed a concessional rescheduling of instalments that the estate officer for housing had allowed in December last year. In effect, according to the report, the relief the company had won inside GMADA was undone at the state level.

GMADA has been told to work out the entire outstanding amount, with interest, penal interest and non construction fees, after adjusting what has been paid. It is to send the company an itemised statement within two weeks. The company then has one month to pay. If it does not, the report says, proceedings for resumption of the site and forfeiture could follow, subject to statutory notice and a reasonable opportunity of hearing.

The site and the payments, as reported

The report says the site, about one point one three acres, was allotted through an auction in September two thousand and fifteen for thirty two crore and fifty lakh rupees. The company paid twenty per cent at the start and later one further instalment. It stopped paying instalments in two thousand and sixteen, according to the revisional order as reported.

Construction began after approval of the plinth level in March two thousand and twenty one and was later abandoned, the report says. Under the revised payment schedule communicated in March this year, a third instalment fell due on the first of September. The report puts the shortfall against it at about four crore rupees as of the thirteenth of October.

The company's case, as the report describes it, was that GMADA had not handed over a site free of encumbrances. It pointed to road access, water supply, a sewerage line through the site and delays in clearances. GMADA's engineering reports said the site could be reached by adjoining roads and that sewerage and storm water lines ran along a nearby road. The revisional authority, according to the report, rejected the claim that capital had been deployed and teams mobilised, because no documents, photographs or expenditure statements were produced.

How the waiver came about

The report says GMADA's authority meeting in February this year, chaired by the chief secretary, concluded that a demand of nearly forty crore rupees in non construction charges was not justified because the site was allegedly not free of encumbrances. The meeting approved a waiver despite objections from the state Finance Department.

In its revision petition the company asked for a further year to pay the rescheduled instalments beyond the first of December this year. It also sought five years to build in place of three, and a waiver or reduction of non construction fees and penalties.

The report places the case alongside an Enforcement Directorate inquiry into the allotment and the waiver, including the engineering assessments behind it. That inquiry is a separate matter. This piece does not deal with it, and nothing in the report says any finding has been made in it.

The ladder in the Act: estate officer, chief administrator, state government

The Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act of nineteen ninety five sets out what happens when a GMADA transferee falls behind. Section forty five begins with the estate officer. Where a transferee defaults on any instalment, the estate officer may call on the transferee by written notice "to show cause, within a period of thirty days, why a penalty as may be determined by the Authority be not imposed". The penalty "shall not exceed the amount due from the transferee".

If the dues and penalty are still unpaid, the estate officer may issue a second notice asking why the site ought not to be resumed and money forfeited. The Act caps that forfeiture: it "in no case shall exceed ten per cent" of the total consideration money together with interest and other dues. A resumption order comes only after the transferee has had a chance to show cause and produce evidence, with reasons recorded in writing.

The next rung is the Chief Administrator. A person aggrieved by an estate officer's order may appeal within thirty days of being told of it. The Chief Administrator may hear a late appeal for sufficient cause, and may "confirm, vary or reverse the order appealed from". He can also call for the record of an estate officer's order on his own within six months to check its legality or propriety.

The final rung is the state government. A person aggrieved by the Chief Administrator's decision on appeal or review may apply within thirty days "to the State Government for revision against the said order". The state government may then confirm or alter the Chief Administrator's order, and it may also rescind it. The order reported on the seventeenth of October is a use of that last power. The Act does not use the word appellate authority. On our reading, GMADA's appellate authority in this case was exercising the Chief Administrator's appeal power under delegation, which is why the revision went to the department.

What the case shows for allottees on instalments

The case is unusual for its size and for the inquiry around it. The mechanics are the ones that apply to any plot bought from GMADA on instalments.

First, relief granted inside GMADA can be revisited. The report shows a rescheduling by the estate officer and an appellate order both set aside at the revision stage, on the company's own petition. A concession won at one stage can meet a different view at a later one.

Second, the reported order turned on evidence. The claim of work on site failed, according to the report, because nothing was produced to support it. The Act's own wording asks for any evidence the transferee may produce before a resumption order.

Third, resumption is not automatic even after a long default. The report says the company is to receive an itemised statement and then has a month to pay. Statutory notice and a hearing come before any resumption.

Fourth, non construction fees are a separate head of dues from instalments. An earlier MA piece explains how GMADA levies them when a plot is bought and left unbuilt.

What remains open

This piece relies on The New Indian Express report of the seventeenth of October. That report cites sources as well as the revisional order. The order itself was not available to us, and GMADA had not published a statement on it when this was written. The company may have further legal remedies outside the Act, and the report does not say whether it plans to use them.

Related reading

- GMADA non construction charges: what happens when a plot is bought and not built on
- A Mohali plot allotment cancelled over dues: what Punjab RERA ordered after the resale

Sources: The sources we use are listed on our Editorial Sources page.

This piece describes a reported state government order and the published text of the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act. Nothing here is legal advice, and any allotment turns on its own papers and facts.