Development fee and sanction conditions upheld, but advance recovery of use-based stacking and water charges was not permitted.

A development authority under a planned-development statute may levy development fee and require advance deposit, bank guarantee or other security as a condition for sanction of development plans when that power is traceable to the Act and regulations, and the absence of an express rate provision does not defeat the authority. However, charges linked to actual use of facilities, such as stacking charges and water charges, cannot be demanded in advance without clear statutory basis. The result was that the authority's power over development charges was upheld, while advance recovery of use-based charges was rejected.

---

---

Issues: (i) whether the development authority had power under the Act and the regulations to levy development fee and to insist on advance payment or bank guarantee as a condition for sanction of development plans; (ii) whether the authority could levy in advance stacking charges and water charges.

Issue (i): whether the development authority had power under the Act and the regulations to levy development fee and to insist on advance payment or bank guarantee as a condition for sanction of development plans

Analysis: The Act constituted a development authority for planned development of development areas and empowered it to undertake development, provide amenities, carry out engineering operations and impose conditions while granting sanction for development. Read with the regulation-making power, the scheme permitted the authority, as a condition for sanction, to require deposit of the estimated cost of amenities or to secure the amount by bank guarantee or mortgage. The statutory scheme therefore supplied authority for levy and collection of development charges, and the absence of an express rate provision did not negate the power where the statute authorised the manner of securing the cost of development and amenities. The constitutional principle that no tax can be levied without authority of law was not breached, since the demand was traceable to the Act and the regulations framed under it.

Conclusion: The authority had power to levy development fee and to require security for the development charges; the challenge on this ground failed.

Issue (ii): whether the authority could levy in advance stacking charges and water charges

Analysis: The charges for stacking materials on public places and for use of water arise only when the respective facility is actually used. They are not charges that can be demanded in advance before the event of use. Advance levy for such items had no statutory basis on the facts before the Court.

Conclusion: The authority could not levy stacking charges and water charges in advance; this part of the High Court's view was upheld.

Final Conclusion: The appeals succeeded on the principal question of development fee, but the restriction against advance recovery of stacking and water charges was maintained, resulting in a partial success for the appellants.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute authorises planned development and empowers the authority to impose sanction conditions and frame regulations for securing the cost of amenities, a development fee or equivalent security can be demanded as traceable to that statutory power, but charges tied to actual use of a facility cannot be recovered in advance without clear authority.

---