Authorities have to pay before acquiring pvt land: HC

Mumbai:
Recently Bombay High Court has restricted to Pune Municipal Corporation from acquiring land for road widening. High Court has said that “any authority can not acquire private peace of land until they paid compensation or granting transfer of developments rights (TDR).
A division bench of Justice comprises Justice D K Deshmukh and Justice Anoop Mohta have heard a petition filed by the Papal Seminary Trust at Vadgaon Sheri village on Nagar Road against the PMC’s take over of its land without granting TDR benefits in exchange.
The petitioner used to teach theology and philosophy to aspiring priests and nuns of the Roman Catholic order.
As per mentioned in the petition that “PMC in 2007 has taken 1,221.54 sq m of its land to widening road for the purpose of Commonwealth Youth Games of 2008”, So as the procedure for acquisition of land is very long though it wrote to the trust saying it would compensate it by granting Floor Space Index/ TDR/cash on the higher priority basis. On basis of PMC promise trust has departed from the land but PMC haven’t fulfilled its promise such TDR for three years and instead raised various contentions such as the project being subject to the Urban Land Ceiling Act and hence should be given free of charge.