Bombay HC Orders Acquisition of DP Road Land in Satara, Rejects Delay and Laches Plea

The Bombay High Court Circuit Bench at Kolhapur held that Satara Municipal Council must acquire a 3,388 sq. metre DP Road reservation and pay compensation, rejecting the council's arguments that the landowner benefited from the adjoining layout and was guilty of delay.

A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court sitting at its Circuit Bench in Kolhapur has directed Satara Municipal Council to initiate acquisition proceedings within four weeks in respect of 3,388.40 sq. metres of land reserved as a Development Plan road under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966. The petitioner, Zal Sam Cooper of Satara, had inherited the reservation from his father and filed Writ Petition No. 7707 of 2018 after years of demands to the authorities went unanswered. The bench, comprising Justice Vrushali V. Joshi and Justice Sandesh D. Patil, found that the Municipal Council had neither acquired the land nor paid compensation, while simultaneously preventing the owner from using it for any other purpose. The council's twin defences—that the family had profited from the adjacent plotted layout and that the petition was belated—were rejected in full.

The Reservation and the Long Wait for Compensation

The land in dispute is Survey No. 465-B/4, Sadar Bazar, Satara, admeasuring approximately 3,388.40 sq. metres. It was first reserved for a DP Road in the Draft Development Plan of Satara City published on 1 March 1977. A separate property card for this plot was created on 3 April 1984 after the petitioner's father obtained conversion of the larger holding—Survey No. 465-B, admeasuring 87,560 sq. metres—from agricultural to non-agricultural residential use and got a layout sanctioned.

On 30 June 1984, the father wrote to Satara Municipal Council handing over possession of the internal roads and drains of the sanctioned layout. The council submitted the draft development plan to the State Government for sanction on 3 February 1999. The State partly sanctioned the plan on 15 September 2001, and the final sanctioned DP came into force on 1 November 2001. The reservation on Survey No. 465-B/4 remained unchanged.

Within a year of the DP taking effect, the petitioner's uncle addressed a letter to the State on 30 October 2002 demanding compensation for the DP Road reservation. A legal notice followed from the petitioner's father on 26 September 2005. The Municipal Council replied on 26 October 2005 refusing compensation, saying the road had been in public use for more than 20 years and the layout was fully developed.

The father then filed Miscellaneous Civil Application No. 261 of 2005 before the District Court, Satara under Section 330(3) of the Maharashtra Municipalities Act, 1965. He withdrew that application on 5 February 2014 with liberty to approach the District Collector under Section 64 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. The father passed away on 23 September 2014, leaving the petitioner as the absolute owner. The petitioner made an application under Section 64 of the 2013 Act on 10 March 2016. On 27 March 2018 the petitioner was told that no compensation could be granted because the DP Road was not being acquired. A legal notice followed on 9 May 2018, and the writ petition was filed on 15 June 2018.

The Municipal Council's Defences

Satara Municipal Council filed a reply opposing the petition on two main grounds. First, it contended that the petitioner's father had voluntarily handed over the road in 1984, had benefited from the sanctioned layout by selling more than 255 plots, and had in effect earned substantial profit by using the DP Road access. The council argued that in light of this benefit, no separate compensation was payable.

Second, the council argued delay and laches. It pointed to the fact that the draft DP was published as early as 1977, that the land was in public use from 1983 onwards, and that proceedings were initiated only in 2005. It relied on the Supreme Court's judgment in State of Maharashtra v. Digambar, (1995) 4 SCC 683, which had held that a writ petitioner guilty of undue delay in approaching the High Court is disentitled to discretionary relief under Article 226. The council also cited a Division Bench ruling of this court in Suresh Khandsari Sugar Mills v. State of Maharashtra, Writ Petition No. 6332 of 2016, decided on 7 July 2017, where relief had been refused on grounds of delay.

At the end of the hearing, counsel for the council also raised a fiscal burden argument, submitting that allowing the petition would impose a heavy financial burden on the council.

How the Bench Reasoned

Justice Sandesh D. Patil, who authored the judgment, worked through the scheme of the MRTP Act before addressing the specific contentions. Chapter III of the Act, covering Sections 21 and 22, deals with development plans. Section 49 obligates authorities to acquire land once it is declared reserved. Section 126 provides that land can be acquired either by agreement or by paying the owner the value of the property; if no agreement is reached, the authority may apply to the State Government for acquisition under the 2013 Act. Section 127 deals with lapsing of reservations.

The bench found the council's benefit-of-layout argument fundamentally misconceived. The property reserved for the DP Road, Survey No. 465-B/4, was distinct from the larger layout land, Survey No. 465-B. Once the DP Road reservation was made, the owner could not use that land for any other purpose. Using the adjacent land for plotting was an entirely separate exercise under Section 44 of the MRTP Act. The fact that the petitioner's father derived commercial value from the plotted land was irrelevant to the obligation to compensate for the reserved road plot. As the bench put it: by no stretch of imagination could it be said that sanction of the layout extinguished the compensation claim for the reservation.

The bench was equally pointed about the council's conduct. Section 126 required the Municipal Council to either reach an agreement with the owner or initiate acquisition after the final DP came into force on 1 November 2001. The council did neither. Instead, it drove the owner “from pillar to post” and refused the claim on grounds the bench described as ex-facie illegal and incorrect.

On the delay and laches point, the bench held that the cause of action to seek compensation arose on 1 November 2001 when the final DP came into force. The uncle's letter followed within a year, in October 2002. The petitioner's father then litigated before the District Court under Section 330(3) of the Maharashtra Municipalities Act, withdrew those proceedings with leave to pursue the statutory route under the 2013 Act, filed that application, and received a final refusal only on 27 March 2018. The petition followed within three months. The bench concluded there was no delay or laches at any stage; the family was consistently pursuing its remedies.

The bench distinguished State of Maharashtra v. Digambar (supra) on its facts, noting that in that case the petitioner had waited 20 years after land was allegedly taken in 1971–72 without making any meaningful attempt to explain the gap. Here, by contrast, the petitioner had engaged every available forum from 2002 onwards.

The bench relied on the Supreme Court's observations in Tukaram Kana Joshi v. Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation, (2013) 1 SCC 353, reproduced in the Division Bench ruling in Damodar Toke v. Municipal Corporation, Jalgaon, Writ Petition No. 10301 of 2012, decided on 11 April 2018, to the effect that delay and laches is not an absolute bar and that where a cause of action is continuing and the situation shocks judicial conscience, the court should exercise its discretion—particularly when no third-party interest is involved. There was no third-party interest here.

The bench also noted the Supreme Court's ruling in Vidya Devi v. State of Himachal Pradesh, (2020) 2 SCC 569, which held that a State cannot forcibly dispossess a person of property without following due process and paying just compensation.

On the fiscal burden argument raised at the end of the hearing, the bench was dismissive. It observed that the Municipal Council “should thank itself and its unreasonable approach” for inviting the liability. It cited the Supreme Court's decision in National Highways Authority of India v. Tarsem Singh, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 481, for the proposition that fiscal implications cannot override the substantive entitlement of landowners to compensation, and that a constitutional guarantee of just compensation cannot be made contingent on the magnitude of the financial burden.

Order

The Division Bench allowed Writ Petition No. 7707 of 2018 in full. The respondents were directed to acquire Survey No. 465-B/4, Sadar Bazar, Satara, admeasuring approximately 3,388.40 sq. metres, in accordance with law. The respondents were directed to initiate this acquisition process within four weeks from 7 July 2026, the date of pronouncement.