IT City Enhancement Demand Set Aside, GMADA Can Reissue IT City एन्हांसमेंट डिमांड रद्द, GMADA फिर से भेज सकता है IT City ਐਨਹਾਂਸਮੈਂਟ ਡਿਮਾਂਡ ਰੱਦ, GMADA ਮੁੜ ਭੇਜ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ

The demand that GMADA sent to IT City plot owners for the enhanced land price no longer stands. On the twenty seventh of August the Punjab and Haryana High Court set aside the demand notice on a writ petition filed by a group of allottees, Paramjit Singh and others against the State of Punjab. The court did not rule on whether the charge is owed. It held only that the owners had not been heard before the bill was raised, and it left GMADA free to issue a fresh demand after a proper hearing.

The sum at stake is seven thousand eight hundred and forty five rupees for every square yard. On a plot of two hundred square yards that works out to about fifteen lakh sixty nine thousand rupees. On a plot of five hundred square yards it comes to about thirty nine lakh twenty two thousand. Those are straight multiplications of the per yard rate, before any interest GMADA may add.

The charge comes from the landowners' compensation cases

GMADA acquired the land for IT City in two thousand and eleven. The farmers who lost it went to court over the price, and since two thousand and thirteen the courts have more than doubled the compensation payable to them in a series of cases. GMADA's chief administrator, Sandeep Rishi, told The Tribune in September that around a hundred and fifty court cases on the matter have been pending since two thousand and thirteen. On court directions the authority has already deposited half of the enhanced compensation with the original landowners, and it is trying to recover that money from the people who now hold the plots.

The decision to pass the cost on was taken in January this year. It reaches nearly seven thousand allottees and transferees. The Tribune reported that around two hundred industrial plot owners carry the heaviest burden, because their plots are the largest, while residential owners face a lighter bill.

What the High Court actually decided

The order is short on the merits by design. The bench allowed the petition "solely" because the principles of natural justice had been violated and recorded that it made no observation on whether the enhancement itself was justified. It then added a line that matters to every owner in the scheme: "Liberty is granted to the respondent-GMADA to raise a fresh demand after adhering to the principles of natural justice."

The court also told GMADA to follow the directions given by a coordinate bench in an earlier case, Surinder Singh's case, on how such demands are to be worked out and put to allottees. In plain terms, the bill is gone for now, and a new bill can come back once owners have been shown the calculation and given a chance to object.

A hearing in September, then a cancelled meeting

GMADA tried to start that process within three weeks. On the fifteenth of September allottees and transferees were called to a public hearing where the Principal Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department, who is also vice chairman of PUDA and GMADA, was to explain how the per yard figure had been reached.

The hearing turned heated. Allottees asked what went into the figure, and whether GMADA had added its own margin to the land price and the development cost. They asked why the enhancement was not built into the price at allotment, since the compensation ruling of two thousand and fifteen came before the plots were allotted in two thousand and nineteen and two thousand and twenty. They also questioned the interest being claimed for the years between two thousand and fifteen and two thousand and twenty.

A follow-up meeting was fixed for the twenty ninth of September. It was called off at the last minute. About a hundred allottees who had gathered in the committee hall that morning were told by an estate officer that a fresh date would be announced through a public notice in the newspapers. MA has found no report of a new date since then.

Certificates are being held back

The practical problem for owners sits outside the courtroom. Allottees told The Tribune that GMADA is holding back the no dues and no objection papers a seller needs, along with the completion certificates owners who have built are waiting for, while it presses them to deposit the enhancement.

An NDC is what a seller needs from GMADA before a transfer can be recorded. A completion certificate is what an owner who has built needs for the building to be treated as complete. If those papers stay blocked, a plot in IT City can be held but is hard to sell or finish, whatever the High Court said about the demand notice.

The order as reported does not deal with certificates at all. Whether GMADA can withhold them while no valid demand exists is a question the allottees have said they may take back to court.

What a buyer of an IT City plot is taking on

Anyone buying an IT City plot from an allottee is buying into this dispute. The charge attaches to the plot, and a transferee stands where the allottee stood. The quashed notice does not wipe out the claim. It only resets the procedure.

That makes the price of a resale plot a calculation with a missing number in it. A buyer has no way to know today whether the fresh demand will match the old per yard figure or carry interest for the years since two thousand and fifteen. The pending compensation cases could also push the figure up again. GMADA's own officials have said the charge rose well beyond their first estimates because of those cases, and Mr Rishi said further relief for allottees was possible "only if court decisions go in our favour."

Sellers face the other side of the same problem. Without an NDC the transfer cannot go through GMADA's records, so any sale in the scheme now rests on what the two sides agree about who carries the risk of a fresh demand.

Our page on [IT City](/location/it-city) shows the plots currently listed in the scheme, and the [plots](/plots) section covers the wider Aerocity and airport road belt.

The open points

GMADA has not announced the new hearing date that its estate officer promised in September. It has not said whether the fresh demand will repeat the same per yard figure. The allottees have said they will return to the High Court if the charge is enforced without due process. Until a new notice issues, the demand of January is not enforceable, and the certificate question is where the next move is most likely to come from.

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

This piece reports a High Court order and GMADA's recovery of enhanced land cost in IT City. It gives no legal or investment advice, and the position of any plot turns on its own allotment papers and GMADA's records.