Haryana suspends fourth floor policy after widespread protests

GURGAON: Punjab and Haryana Supreme Court has postponed the next hearing on the stilts plus four storeys (S+4) policy to September 3. The last hearing was held on Thursday when the Town and Country Planning Department informed the bench of Justices Arun Palli and Vikram Agarwal that the government had put the policy on hold.
On July 2 Haryana decided, construction of four floors, a move that raised significant concerns about the city’s infrastructure. The Gurgaon Citizens Council (GCC), a citizens’ group, approached the Supreme Court to challenge the move.

During the previous hearing, Haryana Deputy Solicitor General Ankur Mittal assured the court that the directive would be put on hold. The court had then given the state a deadline of August 22 (Thursday) by which it should file its reply. When DTCP filed its reply on Thursday, the court announced that the stay on the directive would be extended till the next hearing. The delay is to give the court sufficient time to examine the state’s submission and consider the implications of the directive on building four floors.
The government had given its approval for the construction of stilt-plus-four (S+4) storeys on residential plots after suspending all new building permits for more than a year and a half. Approval for such buildings was halted on February 23, 2023, after residents of licensed settlements demanded a ban on the construction of the fourth storey, citing the strain on existing infrastructure and public amenities.
Several builders, including private companies, have sought to become parties in the case and have filed petitions in the Supreme Court. However, the court has not yet issued any orders on these petitions. Senior advocate Nivedita Sharma, representing the Gulf Cooperation Council, opposed the builders’ involvement, stressing that their involvement was unjustified. Sharma also cited a Supreme Court ruling in a similar case in Chandigarh which said that no urban planning can be done without a thorough environmental impact assessment. She argued that such an assessment is crucial in the present case, given the potential impact of the four-storey construction policy on the city’s already overburdened infrastructure.
Baljeet Rathi, Vice President of GCC, strongly opposed the reintroduction of the four-storey plan without the necessary infrastructure improvements. Rathi warned that such a move would further deteriorate the city’s basic amenities, including drinking water supply, sewerage and drainage facilities, which are already overburdened. He stressed that the government’s previous implementation of the four-storey policy without addressing these infrastructure issues had resulted in significant damage to the city’s urban fabric.