Supreme Court Seeks Karnataka's Reply on Premium FAR Scheme, Bars Its Use for Regularising Illegal Builds
The Supreme Court has asked Karnataka to respond to a challenge to its Premium FAR scheme and said the policy cannot, for now, be used to regularise unauthorised constructions.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Karnataka government on a petition challenging the State's Premium Floor Area Ratio (FAR) scheme, while directing that the policy should not be used, for the time being, to regularise unauthorised constructions.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant asked the State to file its counter affidavit within four weeks. The Bench further held that any clearance granted under Premium FAR would remain subject to the final outcome of the litigation before the apex court.
The petition has been filed by the NGO Citizens Action Forum. Appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate Aditya Sondhi argued that road width had effectively become the sole criterion for granting Premium FAR, permitting significant additional construction without adequate regard to the strain Bengaluru already faces on parking, water supply, electricity and other civic infrastructure.
Justice Joymalya Bagchi, who was part of the Bench, referred to the city's "nightmarish" traffic snarls. Chief Justice Kant observed that vertical development was expanding in urban areas without matching supporting infrastructure, noting that new roads had not been built, new sewer lines had not been laid and bus flyovers had not multiplied. He pointed to Gurugram as an example of how such a system collapses when a natural calamity strikes, saying that burdening a plot with multiple storeys without adding infrastructure creates pressure.
The Premium FAR scheme permits property owners to buy additional construction rights beyond the ordinarily permissible FAR by paying prescribed premium charges. It is intended to encourage vertical development and generate revenue for urban local bodies. FAR itself denotes the ratio of a building's total floor area to the size of the land on which it stands.
The challenge follows the Karnataka High Court's decision on June 15 to uphold the constitutional validity of the scheme. The High Court had dismissed petitions that contended the policy, introduced under Section 18-B of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning (KTCP) Act, 1961, infringed property rights.