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The Supreme Court today restrained the regularization of any unauthorized construction in Karnataka by virtue of the 'Premium Floor Area Ratio' scheme. 

A bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana passed the order, while issuing notice to the State on Citizen Action Forum's plea challenging the Premium FAR scheme contained in Section 18B of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act as arbitrary. The order recorded: 

"Issue notice...Meanwhile, the Premium FAR shall not be used for the purpose of regularizing unauthorized construction. Similarly, the utilization of Premium FAR shall be subject to the final outcome of this petition."

To recap, the Premium FAR scheme permits developers and landowners to avail additional construction rights by paying premium charges to the state. In the form it was introduced, it allowed additional FAR up to 0.6 times the ordinarily permissible FAR for sites abutting roads with a minimum width of 9 meters. From 9 Meters up until 12 meters, only TDRs (Transferable Development Rights) can be utilized for the development of the plot and no Premium FARs can be utilized to reach the additional FAR. The maximum additional FAR that can be acquired through Premium FAR alone is capped at 0.4 times the base FAR, with the balance of 0.2 times the base FAR to be utilised through TDRs.

In June, the Karnataka High Court dismissed a batch of petitions challenging the scheme, while holding that it was not in contravention of Article 300A of the Constitution. Thereafter, the present petition was filed before the Supreme Court. 

Senior Advocate Aditya Sondhi appeared for petitioner-Citizen Action Forum and argued that FAR is relatable to the plot size, but under the new notification, someone can pay premium charges to the state to construct additional floors in a particular plot size. He further contended that Karnataka earlier introduced Akrama-Sakrama scheme to regularize unauthorized constructions, but that was stayed by the court. He claimed that the effect of the Premium FAR scheme was virtually to enable the Akrama-Sakrama scheme. 

Sondhi further highlighted that vide 2025 and 2026 notifications, road width has become the sole criterion for premium FAR. He raised apprehension about what "havoc" the scheme can cause in a place like Bangalore, which had its last Master Plan sanctioned 20 years ago. The plot size and land coverage are not changing, it's merely a revenue generation scheme, the senior counsel claimed. 

Hearing him, CJI expressed, "How to meet the requirement of housing if you don't go...social security is also a big challenge. Affordable housing, states keep implementing their own schemes". 

"But these are for people who can pay. In fact premium charge is very high. It's almost 28% of the actual [...] value. So it's really for builders", Sondhi countered. Subsequently, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for Karnataka, contended that under the new regime, a person has the option of purchasing additional FAR, but the initial ceiling of 0.6 remains. The SG further submitted that if there is additional construction, there has to be proportionate increase in the setup area (such as parking). He also informed that the amount collected under the scheme would go to a statutory fund which would be used to augment other civil structure facilities. 

Senior Advocate Devadatt Kamat supplemented the submissions saying that in Bangalore, there are 85000 roads (almost 80%) measuring 9 to 12 meters. For these, the premium FAR scheme does not kick in. 

"[In]direct kind of a device to allow floor-wise sale, bring more and more families within the same residential unit...and then all these practical problems of parking, water supply, etc. are bound to arise...a device for a new set of builders who will demolish their existing construction, create more setback and sell floor-wise. That's the only consequence which will happen. Let's be practical", the CJI noted. 

Saying that he shared the bench's concern, the SG claimed that the idea was that the city now grow vertically. At this point, Justice Bagchi reiterated the petitioner's concern about the traffic nightmare in Bangalore. However the SG claimed that traffic problem will not be aggravated by the scheme. He also stated that the present scheme is different from Akrama-Sakrama. 

Notably, the SG also said that he was willing to make a statement that no unauthorized construction governed by Akrama-Sakrama scheme will be regularized using the premium FAR scheme. "Kindly record my statement. Problem is urban space is limited. Only way is vertical growth. All other cities have this. Now the only permissible way of even traffic solution is vertical growth...if I have to travel for 2 hours to get a house...", he said. 

"We may see that the unauthorized constructions will not be entitled to premium FAR as of now," Justice Bagchi orally remarked. The CJI on his part remarked that there was no visible improvement or addition to the basic infrastructure of the township. 

"It is not that new roads have been constructed, new sewer lines have been provided, water supply has been multiplied, or all these things. So it is going to be... in nearby...How this system collapses if any natural calamity comes. Because without adding to this infrastructural issue, you are burdening the size of the plot with multiple stories. These builders - what they will do? They will construct and disappear. It's only the families living there who will [face] the miseries of life...before permitting construction, [water, electricity, sewage, etc.] facilities should be there."

CJI Kant also gave the example of Greater Noida, lauding its infrastructural facilities. He said that the structure in Greater Noida takes care of next 100 years' requirement and nobody would mind if a liberal approach for multi-storey buildings  is sought to be taken there. The CJI said that the idea of first allowing additional construction in Bangalore, and then providing for civic amenities through the corpus created out of revenue received, was "problematic". 

Case: CITIZENS ACTION FORUM Versus STATE OF KARNATAKA AND ORS., SLP(C) No. 32316/2026

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