MP High Court Dismisses Writ Against Indore Demolition Notice, Cites Suppression of Material Facts and Encroachment Findings
The Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore dismissed a writ challenging a demolition notice under the Indore Development Plan 2021, finding the petitioner had suppressed joint inspection records showing encroachment on government land, and imposed a cost of Rs 20,000.
Justice Sandeep N. Bhatt, sitting singly at the Indore Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, dismissed a writ petition filed by Anand Kumar Kedia against the State of Madhya Pradesh and the Indore Municipal Corporation. The petitioner had challenged a demolition notice dated 11 August 2026 issued by the Building Officer, Zone 19, Indore Municipal Corporation, which directed removal of his residential construction to an average depth of 12.782 metres. The court found that the petitioner had withheld the joint inspection panchnama prepared on 30 July 2026 — a document whose receiving acknowledgment bore the signature of the petitioner's own representative — and that the said panchnama prima facie established encroachment on government land. The petition was dismissed with a cost of Rs 20,000 payable to M.P. Legal Aid Services Authority, Indore.
The Dispute Over Road Widening and the Demolition Notice
The petitioner purchased land at Survey No. 163/1/2 and 163/4/3, Village and Tehsil Bicholi Hapsi, District Indore, by registered sale deed dated 4 April 2017. A formal statutory demarcation was carried out by revenue officers establishing the boundary between his private land and the adjoining government road land at Khasra No. 164. Based on that demarcation, the Town and Country Planning Department granted building permission in 2019, and the Indore Municipal Corporation granted building permission in 2020.
The Indore Development Plan 2021, issued by respondent no. 1, proposed widening the road from Hotel Pride to City Forest to a width of 30 metres. The road, approximately 2.4 kilometres long, connects the Bypass road to the Light House Project and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana via City Forest. The Building Officer, Zone 19, issued a notice on 9 April 2026 requiring the petitioner to submit property documents, without specifying the survey number. The petitioner responded on 13 April 2026. On 16 April 2026, the respondents commenced road construction including digging and pipeline laying without, according to the petitioner, addressing the pending representation.
A subsequent notice dated 24 April 2026 claimed the petitioner's premises was obstructing the road by 5.1m/9m/12.85m, relying on a demarcation conducted in January 2026. The petitioner denied any such fresh demarcation and sought copies of relevant documents. On 11 May 2026, he approached the Collector, District Indore, seeking an opportunity of hearing before any coercive action. On 13 May 2026, a committee was constituted to consider representations of all stakeholders regarding road alignment.
On 29 June 2026, revenue authorities conducted a physical demarcation without, per the petitioner, verifying the original 2019 demarcation, and a mauka panchnama was prepared in which the petitioner recorded his objection. The petitioner filed a formal application for fresh demarcation on 30 June 2026, which remained pending. On 7 July 2026, the Building Officer issued another demolition notice. The petitioner submitted a representation on 10 July 2026.
The Earlier Round of Litigation and This Court's Prior Directions
Aggrieved by the 7 July 2026 notice, the petitioner filed Writ Petition No. 27726 of 2026 before this court. By order dated 21 July 2026, the court disposed of that petition with specific directions for joint inspection, preparation of a report, opportunity to the petitioner to object to that report, hearing of objections, and passing of a speaking order by the respondents.
A joint inspection by the Indore Municipal Corporation, the Town and Country Planning Department, and the revenue department was commenced on 28 July 2026 and continued on 30 July 2026. The petitioner's representative was present and recorded objections in the panchnama. On 1 August 2026, a hearing notice was issued scheduling a hearing on 4 August 2026. On 4 August 2026, the petitioner again objected on the ground that the inspection report had not been supplied to him. On 11 August 2026, despite these objections, the Building Officer issued the impugned demolition notice bearing No. IMC/Zone-19/Ward-76/2026/3006/6, directing demolition to an average depth of 12.782 metres. The petitioner then filed the present writ petition.
The Petitioner's Legal Arguments
Senior Advocate Kishore Shrivastava, with Advocate Amit Dubey, advanced a range of statutory and constitutional arguments on behalf of the petitioner.
The central statutory contention was that the M.P. Nagar Tatha Gram Nivesh Adhiniyam, 1973 (the Adhiniyam) is a special legislation enacted after the M.P. Municipal Corporation Act, 1956 (the Act of 1956), and therefore its provisions override general municipal powers. Under Sections 49 and 50 of the Adhiniyam, road widening requires the preparation, finalisation, and Gazette publication of a Town Development Scheme. Under Section 50(7), the scheme must be published in the official gazette before it comes into operation. Without such a gazetted scheme, counsel argued, no vesting of acquired land can occur under Section 57 of the Adhiniyam.
It was contended that Section 305 of the Act of 1956 had been misapplied to circumvent acquisition law under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Act, 2013. The action was said to violate Article 300A of the Constitution (right to property) and Article 14 (equality), the latter because, per the petitioner, the central line of the proposed road had been shifted northward to protect illegal encroachers on the southern side of government land, thereby burdening his legitimately owned property.
The petitioner also relied on the Latin maxim generalia specialibus non derogant — special provisions override general ones — and on Supreme Court decisions in Bhavnagar University v. Palitana Sugar Mills (P) Ltd. and Others, reported in 2003(2) SCC 111, Tata Chemicals Ltd. v. Commissioner of Customs (Preventive), Jamnagar, reported in 2015(11) SCC 628, and Brajendra Singh Yambem v. Union of India & Another, reported in 2016(9) SCC 20, for the proposition that when law requires something to be done in a particular manner, it must be done in that manner alone.
On natural justice, it was submitted that the respondents had violated the binding directions issued in W.P. No. 27726/2026 by not supplying the inspection report before issuing the demolition notice, thereby violating the principle of audi alteram partem.
The Respondents' Defence
Advocate Rishi Tiwari for respondents no. 2 and 3 raised a threshold objection: the petitioner had suppressed the material fact that the joint inspection report — which showed encroachment by the petitioner on government land — had been supplied to the petitioner's representative, whose receipt signature appeared on the overleaf of the document. This document was not placed before the court by the petitioner.
On the merits, the respondents relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Ravindra Ramchandra Waghmare v. Indore Municipal Corporation and Others, reported in (2017) 1 SCC 667. They argued that the Indore Development Plan 2021, once prepared under the Adhiniyam and published under Section 19(4), is binding on the Corporation and all concerned, including property owners. Section 305 of the Act of 1956 empowers the Corporation to issue demolition and set-back notices as implementing authority; a separate Town Planning Scheme is not a pre-condition for exercise of that power under a binding development plan. Vesting under Section 305 is automatic by operation of law once the set-back occurs, without any separate acquisition process.
On Article 300A, respondents cited a Division Bench order in W.A. 873/2014 holding that in view of automatic vesting under Section 305 of the Act, an Article 300A challenge cannot be accepted. On Article 14, they relied on para 72 of Waghmare to submit that the classification underlying Section 305 does not suffer from discrimination. On the ownership issue, they clarified that ownership is not disputed; it is relevant only for determining compensation in the form of FAR and TDR.
How the Court Reasoned
Justice Bhatt accepted that the legal propositions cited by the petitioner from Bhavnagar University, Tata Chemicals, and Brajendra Singh Yambem — that statutory authorities must act in the manner prescribed by law — were uncontroversial. He also accepted the applicability of generalia specialibus non derogant as a general canon of construction. However, he found that these principles did not assist the petitioner on the facts.
The pivotal finding was one of suppression. The mauka panchnama dated 30 July 2026 clearly indicated that the petitioner had put up construction by including government land within his own land. The panchnamas dated 28 July 2026 and 30 July 2026 were prepared in the presence of the petitioner's representative. Photographs filed with the respondents' reply confirmed this. Yet the petitioner had not produced these documents with his petition. When the petitioner's counsel sought to respond by offering to file an affidavit, the court examined the record and found the representative's receiving acknowledgment on the overleaf of the inspection report. The court held that the contention that the documents had never been supplied to the petitioner was not supported by the record.
Applying the principle from S.J.S. Business Enterprises (P) Ltd. v. State of Bihar and Others, reported in (2004) 7 SCC 166, and the Supreme Court's recent elaboration in Government of NCT of Delhi & Anr. v. M/s BSK Realtors LLP & Anr., SLP Civil No. 6604 of 2026, the court held that suppression of a material fact disqualifies a litigant from obtaining relief. The suppressed fact must be one that, had it not been withheld, would have had an effect on the merits. The court found the encroachment finding in the joint inspection report was plainly material — it went to the heart of the petitioner's case that the demolition notice targeted a lawfully constructed structure within his own boundary.
The court then applied the maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus — false in one thing, false in everything — to the petitioner's conduct, given that his representative had signed the inspection proceedings yet the petitioner maintained before the court that no such documents had been provided to him.
On the statutory framework, the court extensively reproduced and applied the Waghmare judgment. Para 56 of Waghmare establishes that the development plan, once fixed as the regular line of a public street under Section 19(5) and Section 25 of the Adhiniyam, is binding on all — including property owners — and that requiring separate acquisition under Sections 78 and 79 of the Act for every set-back under Section 305 would frustrate the entire purpose of development planning. Para 71 of Waghmare holds that a Town Development Scheme is subservient to the development plan, not a pre-condition for the Corporation's action as implementing authority under Section 305. The development plan, which does not require micro-planning, is binding and can be implemented directly.
The court found that the Corporation was acting within the four corners of Section 305 of the Act of 1956, implementing the Indore Master Plan 2021, and had followed the process directed by the court in the earlier round of litigation. There was no violation of Article 14 or Article 300A on the facts as established by the inspection record. All the petitioner's contentions, though described as “attractive,” were found to lack merit in the facts and circumstances of the case.
Order
The writ petition was dismissed. Justice Bhatt found no arbitrariness, illegality, or unjust action warranting interference under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
On costs, the court noted that the conduct warranted a heavy exemplary cost, but took into account the petitioner's submission that he was unaware of the suppressed documents. A cost of Rs 20,000 (Rupees Twenty Thousand) was imposed, to be deposited in the account of M.P. Legal Aid Services Authority, Indore within seven days of the order. The receipt was directed to be submitted in the Registry of the Indore Bench.