A 93-year-old Sangrur petitioner, the Master plan, Shree Cement, and the Supreme Court......by KBS Sidhu
A super-senior citizen’s persistence meets constitutional principle: the Supreme Court’s 13 February 2026 ruling on Master Plans, dust, distance, and dignity
When Environmental Concerns Intersect the Fundamental Right to Life and Personal Liberty
On 13 February 2026, a Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta delivered a reportable, 63-page judgment in Harbinder Singh Sekhon & Ors. v. State of Punjab & Ors.
At one level, the case concerned a proposed cement grinding unit of the Shree Cement group on land that was, in planning terms, essentially agricultural in Sangrur district, Punjab.
At another, it became a reaffirmation of two constitutional fundamentals: that statutory planning frameworks are binding, and that preventive environmental safeguards cannot be diluted by administrative convenience—particularly when the consequences fall on communities, habitations, and schools.
But there is a third, quieter story that gives this litigation its moral force. One of the petitioners was 93 years old. His civil writ petition had been dismissed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, yet he did not retreat into resignation.
Led in the Supreme Court by Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, he persisted, travelled the long constitutional road, and succeeded. In an age of cynicism about access to justice, that fact alone deserves reflection—because it reminds us that constitutional remedies can still be real for ordinary citizens, even when the first courtroom door has closed.
The Context: A CLU in an Agricultural Zone
The dispute arose from a Change of Land Use (CLU) dated 13 December 2021, granted in favour of a cement-related industrial unit. The land fell within a rural agricultural zone under the notified Master Plan for Sangrur. Local agriculturists and a nearby school challenged the permission.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed their civil writ petitions, holding that a subsequent “approval” by the statutory Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Board in January 2022 effectively cured the defect in the CLU. The 93-year-old petitioner and others approached thereafter the Supreme Court, impugning this judgment.
The central legal question was deceptively simple:
Can an executive permission override an operative statutory Master Plan?
The Master Plan Is Law, Not Advice
The Supreme Court’s answer was unequivocal. Under the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act, 1995 (commonly known as the PUDA law), a Master Plan is not a policy guideline but a statutory instrument. It comes into legal force only after a defined public process—publication, an opportunity for citizens to file suggestions, claims and objections, and a final notification in the Official Gazette. Once it comes into operation, it binds both the State and the citizen.
Section 79 of the Act contains a prohibition: land use must conform to the Master Plan.
A Change of Land Use (CLU), the Supreme Court held, is not a device to sidestep zoning or the Master Plan’s land-use framework. It is merely a regulatory permission, and it presupposes conformity with what the Plan allows. If the land lies in a rural agricultural zone where a red-category industry is impermissible, no administrative order—even if styled as a “resolution” or “approval” of a statutory Board—can lawfully convert that site into an industrial enclave.
This part of the judgment restores discipline to planning law. Across India, Master Plans are too often treated as flexible guidelines, adjusted informally in the name of facilitation or investment. The Apex Court has reminded us that planning certainty is not a bureaucratic inconvenience—it is a legal safeguard.
Ex-Post Facto Approval Cannot Cure Illegality
The Punjab and Haryana High Court had reasoned that a Planning Board “approval” recorded on 5 January 2022 validated the CLU retrospectively.
The Supreme Court rejected this reasoning.
Minutes of a meeting are not the same as a statutory amendment. If land use is to be altered, it must be done in the manner prescribed by the statute: notice, objections, and formal publication. Anything less would collapse the distinction between a proposal and a legally operative change.
A permission unlawful on the date of its grant cannot be made lawful by a later administrative endorsement unless the statute expressly permits retrospective validation. The PRTPD Act does not.
This is not mere technicality. It is about institutional integrity. When statutes prescribe procedure, that procedure protects public participation and guards against arbitrariness of the state and its instrumentalities.
February 17, 2026
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KBS Sidhu, Former Special Chief Secretary Punjab
kbs.sidhu@gmail.com
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