JUDGMENT :

GS Patel J.

1. Rule. Rule returnable forthwith. The Petition is taken up for hearing and final disposal.

2. The Petition challenges a demand of Rs 6,09,66,477/- raised by the District Collector and Competent Authority under the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976 (“ULC Act”) in respect of an area of 4849 sq mts of CS No. 30/A/1/6 at village Chandivali, Taluka Kurla. This is said to be pursuant to a Government Resolution (“GR”) dated 1st August 2019.

3. We believe the matter is fully covered by our recent decisions in Salim Alimohomed Porbanderwalla & Anr vs State of Maharashtra & Anr., 2023 SCC OnLine Bom 731 : (2023) 3 Bom CR 140. Decided on 30th March 2023., read with the later decisions in Voltas Ltd & Anr v Municipal Commissioner of Thane Municipal Corporation & Ors., Interim Application No 1463 of 2022 in Writ Petition No 7222 of 2007, decided on 6th June 2023. and RR Realtors v State of Maharashtra & Ors., Writ Petition No. 1268 of 2019, decided on 31st July 2023. In those decisions, we considered an issue of law, viz., whether under the provisions of the now repealed ULC Act, demands could be raised for the entire area that was once the subject of ULC proceedings, i.e., including the area of vacant land as well.

4. In the present case, as the undisputed record at pages 53 and 54 shows, being the Schedule of the Exemption Order under Section 20 of the ULC Act, the total area was 4854 sq mts., [There is a small difference because of the entry in the property record card] . That very Schedule shows the vacant land to be 1606.14 sq mts.

5. In the Salim Porbanderwalla case, we analysed the legislative and jurisprudential background of the ULC Act and its repeal.. We have since followed this in Voltas Ltd and RR Realtors, supra.

6. The ULC Act was repealed by the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulations) Repeal Act 1999. On 29th November 2007, the State Legislature adopted the Repeal Act and it was brought into force in the State of Maharashtra. As we shall presently see, the Repeal Act had a solitary savings clause in Section 3.

7. On 3rd September 2014, a Full Bench of this Court considered the effect of the Repeal Act in Maharashtra Chamber of . Housing Industry & Ors v State of Maharashtra & Anr., 2014 SCC OnLine Bom 1083 : (2014) 6 Mah LJ 829 (FB) : (2014) 6 Bom CR 247 (FB). The majority held that exemptions granted under Section 20 of the ULC Act did not abate on repeal. [Per SC Dharmadhikari and GS Kulkarni JJ; SC Gupte J dissenting. Kulkarni J delivered a separate judgment concurring with Dharmadhikari J.]

8. The Government of Maharashtra appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Mr Justice BN Srikrishna (as he then was) and this committee recommended that the issue of exemption orders under Section 20 could and should be closed by accepting a certain payment. That proposal by the State Government was ultimately accepted in a Civil Appeal before the Supreme Court (order dated 2nd July 2019). [Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry & Ors v State of Maharashtra & Anr, Civil Appeal No 558 of 2017 (unreported), originally Special Leave Petition (C) No 29006 of 2014 from the Full Bench decision, supra.]

9. This led to the State Government issuing the first of the GRs dated 1st August 2019 by which it effectively offered to close all pending issues regarding surplus land and retention land by accepting a payment, which we shall call a premium, since this is the terminology commonly used throughout these proceedings. There was a second GR dated 16th September 2019.

10. The position in law is as follows. The ULC Act’s stated purposes were two: first, to prevent land speculation and profiteering by a concentration of urban lands in the hands of a few; and, second, to achieve an equitable distribution of land in urban agglomeration for the greater common good.

11. Chapter III of the ULC Act had specific provisions directed towards these objectives. Broadly, there were three strategies. (1) the imposing of a ‘ceiling’