Chandigarh: HC gives GMADA 6 weeks to take final call on enhancement fee

As per the petition, the plot holders are being asked to collectively pay ₹288 crore more on the actual enhancement fee of ₹300 crore, as GMADA failed to initiate the proceedings in 2013

{Enhancement fee}

The petitioners submitted that GMADA had neither responded to their legal notice nor individual pleas on the issue even though over a year had gone by. (HT Photo)

The Punjab and Haryana high court has asked the Greater Mohali Development Authority (GMADA) to take a decision on the levy of enhancement fee, being opposed by 30,000 plot holders living in Sectors 76 to 80 in Mohali, within six weeks.

As per the petition, the plot holders are being asked to collectively pay ₹288 crore more on the actual enhancement fee of ₹300 crore, as GMADA failed to initiate the proceedings in 2013.

While disposing of the petition by the Sector 76-80 Plot Allotment & Development Welfare Committee (Regd.), the high court bench of justice Arun Palli and justice Vikram Aggarwal observed, “This court is sanguine that the authority shall consider/examine the matter in the right earnest, and pass appropriate orders, within the time indicated by learned state counsel, assigning reasons in support thereof.”

Earlier, the state’s counsel had submitted that the matter be disposed of to enable the authorities to consider the claim of the petitioners and pass necessary orders.

As per the plea, the authority is passing on the burden of a 10-year-old delay onto the residents. GMADA was to recover the amount in 2013 when the amount was ₹300 crore, but now the authority has added the interest of ₹288 crore, the plea said, demanding that notices slapped on the plot owners be quashed.

GMADA had started issuing notices in May 2023, asking plot holders to pay the amount calculated at ₹2,645.50 per square yard or face action.

The petitioners submitted that GMADA had neither responded to their legal notice nor individual pleas on the issue even though over a year had gone by.

“The impugned demand is apparently erroneous and unsustainable on multiple grounds. But owing to inaction at the end of the respondent authorities, rights/interests of the petitioners are gravely impaired and with each passing day, the said liability is multiplying,” the plea said.

The plot owners had also alleged that GMADA had included 80 acres of land, situated in Sectors 85 and 89, within the boundaries of Sectors 76 to 80, adding an extra financial burden on the residents, which was also illegal.

During the hearing, the petitioners had agreed for disposal of the plea at this stage but had said a time frame be given to GMADA as the matter was “time sensitive”.

On the other hand, the state’s counsel undertook that before any decision was taken by GMADA, the stakeholders would be heard and a formal communication in this regard would be issued, well in advance.