HC upholds Rs 62.48 crore demand from land promoters for additional 93.35 acres in mega industrial park project

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld the validity of demand notices totaling approximately Rs 62.48 crore issued to Janta Land Promoters Pvt. Ltd. for the additional 93.35 acres added to its already approved 300-acre Mixed Use Mega Industrial Park Project in Mohali.

Dismissing the writ petition filed by the developer, the Division Bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Vikas Suri held that the company was liable to pay external development charges (EDC), licence fee, change of land use (CLU) charges and related levies for the expanded portion of the project. The Bench asserted that the demands were well within the ambit of the applicable statutes and rules.

The Bench, during the course of hearing, was told that the State of Punjab notified Industrial Policy, 2003, wherein certain incentives were to be provided to investors and promoters for setting up mixed use mega industrial parks. Notification dated April 2, 2003, was issued exempting all industrial/agro/IT parks form payment of EDC.

The petitioner’s application of setting up a mixed use mega industrial park, comprising 120 residential and 180 industrial components, was approved by the empowered committee and exemptions under policy granted to the petitioner.

An additional land of 93.35 acres was subsequently in the project, following which the respondents raised demands of EDC/license fee/CLU charges etc. The petitioner then filed a petition seeking quashing of the demands. This petition was allowed, following which the respondents filed an SLP against this decision but remained unsuccessful. An empowered committee approved the additional land to the project but did not exempted concession endowments related to this additional land.

The Bench asserted that the relief granted in that petition was confined to the land initially approved under an agreement dated June 24, 2005. It held that the demand under challenge in the present petition pertained to land added later and was never covered by the earlier litigation.

The Bench held that the issue concerning the 93.35 acres was neither raised nor decided earlier. The court further observed that the Empowered Committee had specifically approved the additional land without extending the benefit of exemption, and that the demand raised was in accordance with this decision.

Chandigarh