The central legal point established is that land use can only be changed in accordance with the provisions of the Delhi Development Act,1957, and public interest cannot justify violating statutory provisions.

( 1 ) THE writ petition, which is in the nature of public interest litigation, has been filed by the petitioner herein, which is an association of the residents of b Block, Naraina Vihar, New delhi. The petitioner has inter alia questioned the action of the respondents from converting a residential area into a commercial area by reallocating the shopkeepers, who were encroachers in the Ring Road, Naraina Vihar. According to the petitioner, the said encroachments had been removed for widening the Ring Road in Naraina Vihar. The petitioner contended that once the land use had been shown in the Zonal Development plan (hereinafter for the sake of brevity referred to as, zdp ) as residential area, the same cannot be changed except in accordance with Section 11a of the Delhi Development act,1957 (hereinafter for the sake of brevity referred to as, the said Act ).

( 2 ) THE contention of the respondents, on the other hand, is that the petitioner itself has wanted to construct a Community Hall on the land in question. The respondents would urge that in Master Plan,delhi-2001, which has been issued in supercession of the earlier Master plan,1960, Delhi had been divided into eight urban planning zones from Zones a to h . Naraina found spot in Zone b . In this connection, our attention has been drawn to the statements made in the written submission to the effect that the said land is contained in Sub- zone b-7 .

( 3 ) THE land use in terms of the Master Plan, Delhi-2001 has been categorized into nine major uses, i. e. , Residential, Commercial, Manufacturing Recreational, Transportation, Utility, government, Public and Semi-Public and Agriculture and Water Body.

( 4 ) IN the residential use zone, the respondent would contend, several activities would be permissible, e. g. , residential plots, group housing, hotels, guest-houses, convenience shopping, local shopping centre, etc. shopping is, defined to include, retail, service, repair, informal shops, commercial offices, etc.

( 5 ) IT has further been the contention of the respondents that ZDP as approved by the central Government on 04. 06. 1999 in exercise of its powers conferred under Section 9 (2) of the said Act, the said ZDP would supercede other ZDPs. The respondents would further contend that so far as the disputed land is concerned, the prescribed user thereof is group Housing . According to the respondents, they were extremely concerned with the removal what is known as chicken-neck traffic bottleneck on the main Ring Road. At the said point, traffic jams and extreme inconvenience to the road uisers as well as the people in the vicinity is caused owing to. tremendous collection of vehicles resulting in traffic jams. The occupiers of the area are required to be uprooted. With a view to rehabilitate them, a decision was taken that small plots should be alloted, which will have low intensity mixed land- use permitted under the Master Plan under wnch the aforementioned activities in the area are permitted. The respondents would contend that by reason thereof there would not be any impact on the adjoining environment. Such a decision allegedly had been taken at the highest level of the Authorities and has been approved by the Planning Department and the vice-Chairman, DDA, as also the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi. The respondents would contend the proposal in question amounts to a mere modification in the lay-out plan, which has been approved by the competent authority.

( 6 ) MR. V. K. Shali, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner, would submit that the land use cannot be changed, except in accordance with law. Reliance in this connection has been placed on Virender Gaur and Ors. Vs. State of Haryana and Ors. (1995) 2 SCC 577. It was further submitted that assuming that the land use could be changed, the same would amount to land use pertaining to a ZDP and not lay-out plan and the same could be done only after following the procedure contem