Deemed sanction for lay-out plans rejected; revised plan applications remain maintainable under municipal law.

Section 313 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 does not create a deemed sanction for a lay-out plan merely because the Standing Committee fails to act within sixty days; the time limit is a promptness requirement, not a statutory fiction of approval. The provision was contrasted with other sanctioning schemes where deemed consequences are expressly provided, showing that automatic approval was not intended. A revised lay-out plan is also maintainable after an original plan has been sanctioned and utilisation of land has begun, because a revised proposal is a fresh plan that must be examined on its own statutory merits and may be refused only on grounds recognised by section 313(4).

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether failure of the Standing Committee to act on an application for sanction of a lay-out plan within the period prescribed by section 313 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 results in a deemed sanction. (ii) Whether an application for sanction to a revised lay-out plan is maintainable under section 313 after an original lay-out plan has already been sanctioned and some utilisation of the land may have commenced.

Issue (i): Whether failure of the Standing Committee to act on an application for sanction of a lay-out plan within the period prescribed by section 313 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 results in a deemed sanction.

Analysis: Section 313 requires the owner to submit a lay-out plan and obliges the Standing Committee to act within sixty days, but the provision does not expressly create a legal fiction that non-action within that period amounts to sanction. The scheme of sections 313, 336 and 337 was contrasted with the more tightly time-bound machinery governing sanction for buildings and works, where the statute expressly provides for deemed consequences. The absence of similar language or contextual urgency in section 313 showed that the prescribed time is only a standard for prompt decision-making and not a source of automatic approval.

Conclusion: Failure to decide the application within sixty days does not amount to a deemed sanction, and the contrary view was rejected.

Issue (ii): Whether an application for sanction to a revised lay-out plan is maintainable under section 313 after an original lay-out plan has already been sanctioned and some utilisation of the land may have commenced.

Analysis: A revised lay-out plan represents a fresh and differently constituted plan, and section 313 does not bar a subsequent application merely because an original sanction had earlier been granted or land utilisation had begun in accordance with the original plan. The revised proposal still has to satisfy the statutory requirements and may be refused on the grounds specified in section 313(4), but it remains a proper application for consideration under the Act.

Conclusion: The application for sanction to the revised lay-out plan was maintainable and had to be considered by the Standing Committee in accordance with law.

Final Conclusion: The judicial relief was limited to requiring statutory consideration of the revised lay-out proposal, while denying any automatic entitlement to treat it as sanctioned.

Ratio Decidendi: A statutory time limit for deciding an application does not by itself create a deemed sanction unless the legislature expressly provides a legal fiction, and a revised lay-out plan may be sought afresh notwithstanding an earlier sanction to the original plan.

---