Land-use notification remains valid despite wrong statutory citation where substantive planning power existed.

Section 35 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 deems a pre-existing sanctioned development plan to be a final development plan, so later land-use changes must be tested against the scheme for final plans and minor modifications. A change from playground to school and cultural centre was treated as a valid minor modification under Section 37(2), while the 1992 notification was treated as sanction of a draft development plan under Section 31(1). A notification is not invalid merely because it cites the wrong provision if the substantive power exists, and the land-use decision was not found arbitrary.

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Issues: Whether the notification of 24 April 1992 was invalid for not taking into account the earlier notification of 10 April 1985 and whether the change of land use was beyond the statutory scheme governing final development plans and minor modifications.

Analysis: Section 35 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 creates a legal fiction by treating a development plan sanctioned before commencement of the Act as a final development plan under the Act. Section 31(1) governs sanction of a draft development plan, while Section 37(2) permits only minor modification of a final development plan after the prescribed inquiry and hearing. On the facts, the pre-existing development plan had already been deemed a final development plan, and the 1985 notification validly altered the land use from playground to school and cultural centre under the power of minor modification. The 1992 notification, therefore, was not a fresh modification of the 1985 notification, but a sanction of the draft development plan under Section 31(1). The mere mention of the wrong provision in the notification did not invalidate it when the power otherwise existed. The decision on land use was also found not to be arbitrary.

Conclusion: The challenge to the 1992 notification failed, and the High Court's view was held unsustainable. The change of land use was upheld as within the statutory powers of the State Government.

Ratio Decidendi: In land-use matters under the planning statute, a notification is not invalid merely because it cites the wrong provision if the authority possessed the substantive power to issue it, and judicial review will not interfere absent arbitrariness.

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