The main legal point established in the judgment is that any demand or imposition of charges by the authority must align with the statutory provisions and be in accordance with the law.

ORDER :

1. The petitioner is before this Court calling in question order dated 07-07-2014 by which, betterment charges/fee is demanded against him and also sought for consequential direction by issuance of writ in the nature of mandamus to grant permission for construction of proposed four floors on the existing school campus by way of an extension to the existing building, without insisting on payment of betterment charges.

2. Brief facts leading to the filing of the present petition, as borne out from the pleadings, are as follows:-

The petitioner/Good Shepherd Convent is run by Good Shepherd Society, a society registered under the Mysore Societies Registration Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Society’ for short). The Society or the School was established in the year 1854 and has been rendering education, which the petitioner claims to be as a service, for all these years. The area is comprised of about 23 acres in the heart of the City where the petitioner provides facilities like education, hostel, residential care and other allied activities concerning education to students.

3. Owing to increase in number of students and necessity for creation of few more class rooms, an application was made to the 2nd respondent/Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (‘BBMP’ for short) on 11-06-2014 seeking building licence for construction of additional four floors on the existing school campus. All the necessary documents were also annexed to the application and as required under the building bye-laws of the BBMP a scrutiny fee of Rs.1,61,438/-was also enclosed to the said application. In reply to the said application seeking permission for construction of four floors on the existing building, a demand was raised by the BBMP making it a pre-condition for approval of plan demanding Rs.69,70,520/-to be the betterment charges that the petitioner had to pay.

4. The petitioner submitted a representation and sought information as to under what provision of law the said betterment charge is demanded. The BBMP in terms of its reply dated 1-08-2014 justified the action of demanding betterment charges taking recourse of Section 18A of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961 (‘the KTCP Act’ for short) read with Government order dated 19-11-1993. The petitioner, on receipt of this reply, again represented that Section 18A of the Act would not empower the BBMP to demand betterment charges as is done in the case at hand. Several representations were made post the demand notice. Since there was no reply to those notices, the petitioner approaches this Court in the subject writ petition.

5. Heard learned senior counsel Sri D.L.N.Rao appearing for the petitioner, learned High Court Government Pleader Sri K.R.Nithyananda appearing for the respondent No.1 and learned counsel Sri K.N.Puttegowda appearing for the respondents No.2 and 3.

6. The learned senior counsel would contend that betterment charges under Section 18 or 18A of the KTCP Act would become payable only when change of land use is sought or the land is being developed for the first time. Both these instances are absent in the case at hand. Building was constructed about 100 years ago with all the necessary payments made thereon at that point of time and what is now sought is only addition and alteration and not altogether a new construction in the entire area. The betterment charge now demanded is for the entire 23 acres of land that the petitioner possesses which is in the heart of the city and none of the instances would permit demand of betterment fee or charge in the instant case.

7. On other hand, the learned counsel Sri K.N.Putte Gowda appearing for respondent No.2/BBMP would seek to justify the demand and submit that the petitioner right from the date on which the Act came into existence has not even applied for any licence or paid any betterment fee. None of the statutory fee was paid by the petitioner on the ground that it is a very old institution and all fees that wer