JUDGMENT :

B.R. GAVAI, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. “Let this be a new town, symbolic of freedom of India unfettered by the traditions of the past…an expressions of the nation’s faith in the future”.

These were the words of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s First Prime Minister, while laying down the founding principles of a new city for Capital of the State of Punjab.

I. BACKGROUND:

3. After India attained independence in the year 1947, the Government of Punjab in consultation with the Government of India approved the site for the new Capital of the State in March 1948. The new city was designed by French Architect Le Corbusier in association with other architects, namely, Pierre Jeanneret, Jane B. Drew and Maxwell Fry. The city was planned as a living example of urban design, landscaping and architecture. It was a city to be created with the use of ordinary construction materials and embellished with integral works of art. Chandigarh’s monumental architecture as enunciated by Le Corbusier is based on the principles of town planning concept of Sun, Space, and Verdure. Le Corbusier incorporated principles of light, space and greenery in the plan and used the human body as a metaphor – the ‘head’ contained the Capital Complex, the ‘heart’ being the Commercial Centre, i.e., Sector 17, lungs (the leisure valley, innumerable open spaces and sector greens), the intellect (the cultural and educational institutions), the viscera (the industrial area), and the ‘arms’ having academic and leisure facilities like open courtyards etc. The circulation system was conceived as having seven types of roads known as 7Vs.

4. Chandigarh has been envisaged as an administrative city with hierarchical distribution of population being such, that the population density in the northern sectors is low, which increases towards the southern sectors. Chandigarh has been planned as a lowrise city, and has been so developed that even after sixty years of its inception, it retains the original concept to a large extent. This is how the concept of this “beautiful city” was born.

5. On division of the State of Punjab into States of Punjab and Haryana, the city was made a Union Territory (UT), and became the Capital for both the States. The city of Chandigarh was developed into two phases, Phase-I having Sectors 1 to 30 and Phase-II having Sectors 31 to 47. Phase-I was designed for low-rise plotted development for a total population of 1,50,000. Phase-II Sectors were to have a much higher density as compared to Phase-I Sectors.

6. In the year 1952, the Union of India, in order to regulate development in the city of Chandigarh, enacted the Capital of Punjab (Development and Regulations) Act, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as “the 1952 Act”). In the year 1960, the Government of Punjab, in exercise of the powers conferred by Sections 5 and 22 of the 1952 Act, made the Chandigarh (Sale of Sites and Building) Rules, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as “the 1960 Rules”). Rule 14 of the 196