East Delhi colony residents wanted senior citizens’ centre on empty plot. DDA has other plans

Walk into this housing colony in East Delhi’s Mayur Vihar Phase III, and the dust and honking outside seem to disappear.

The main road is lined with old, large trees on both sides, their canopies almost completely covering it. Residents buy their daily essentials from the society’s only dairy booth, while children run around on the roads. These three-storey Delhi Development Authority (DDA) buildings and the slow pace of life are reminiscent of an older Delhi.

At the far end of the society, a 599-square-metre plot is nestled between a play school and a Delhi Jal Board pumping station. The land was earlier used as a dumping ground for leaves and horticultural waste. After sightings of snakes, residents got the area cleaned and began parking their cars there.

In July 2016, residents wrote to the DDA, asking it to develop this plot, officially earmarked for community use, as a recreation centre for senior citizens.

The DDA did not respond.

Nearly a decade later, on October 11 this year, residents found a notice on the plot in Hindi and English. It read: “This property has been purchased by VVM Builders Private Limited. All vehicle owners are requested to remove their vehicles from the property immediately.”

Residents later found out that the DDA had put the plot up for auction and sold it to a builder for a shopping complex. The notice also said a gate would be installed and locked.

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They went to court. On October 16, the Delhi High Court stayed the “effect and operation” of the DDA’s decision to convert the plot from “Other Community Facilities” (OCF) to “local shopping/convenience shopping”.

Why residents are against move

The flats were built and launched under the DDA’s 9th Self Financing Scheme three decades ago in what was then Kondli Gharoli and is now Mayur Vihar Phase III. Buyers paid for their flats in installments as construction progressed.

There are 976 flats, of which 320 are in Pocket A, represented by the Mayuri Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA).

For 61-year-old advocate Arvind Chhabra, who lives in the society, the proposed shopping complex raises questions about its viability and the inconvenience it could cause residents. “Even Pocket B has a commercial complex, but no shop has been sold there in the last five-six years. Even the shutters have been stolen by thieves. How will this work here?” he said.

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Chhabra said the proposed complex would also bring construction activity and commercial traffic into the residential pocket. “Trucks and tempos will come through the same entrance. There is no separate entry or exit identified for the complex. Two to three years of construction will go on, and residents will have to bear the inconvenience,” he said.

Instead of a shopping complex, residents wanted facilities that would directly benefit the community, he said, suggesting a library, gym, community hall or function hall.

RWA president Tejvir Deshwal echoed the concerns: “The plot has no separate entry and exit points, so anyone who would eventually come to the proposed shopping complex will have to go through our society, posing security concerns.”

After the notice appeared, the RWA said it complained to the Station House Officer of Ghazipur police station. Residents alleged that “unauthorised persons accompanied by unknown musclemen” came to the back of the pocket, “issuing direct threats of forcibly taking possession of the area”.

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According to the complaint, a PCR team arrived after a call to 112. Residents claimed police declined to register an FIR, calling it a civil dispute.

Change in plot’s designated use

DDA initiated the process of selling the land around 10 months ago. The plot was included in an e-auction tender issued on December 27, 2025, and listed as an “OCF plot”.

Under the Delhi Master Plan, OCF land can be used for old age homes, working women’s hostels, night shelters, care centres for mentally and differently abled persons, adult education centres, orphanages, science centres and religious premises.

In February 2026, the DDA’s 434th screening committee meeting approved changing the use of plots in the Kondli Gharoli layout plan from OCF to “Local Shopping/Convenient Shopping (LSC/CS)”.

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The DDA told The Indian Express that the plot was sold to VVM Builders Private Limited for Rs 5.35 crore. A Letter of Intent was issued to the builder on March 24, 2026, and possession of the plot has since been handed over.

In their petition, residents argued that they were never consulted. They claimed that the DDA skipped the legal process for changing land use, which requires a public notice in newspapers so residents can raise objections.

The DDA, however, defended its decision, saying the change was an adjustment at the layout-plan level and did not involve a change in the land use under the Master Plan.

Its spokesperson said deciding plot-wise use premises within an approved layout plan was an administrative and planning function of the DDA. The interests of the RWA had not been set aside, the spokesperson said, adding that the proposed facility was a neighbourhood-level shopping complex permitted under residential land use.

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“… Notice and objections… are required only when the Master Plan or zonal plan is modified, that is, when the land use itself changes. No such changes were made here as the land use of the plot remains ‘Residential’,” the spokesperson said.

What transpired in court

Residents claimed in their petition that the plot is part of the society’s common area, in which flat owners hold an undivided interest under the Delhi Apartment Ownership Act, 1986, and that it “cannot be sold off independent of the residential homes”.

According to the petition, the price of the flats included “the proportionate cost of the development of the pocket along with its community facilities, green belts and open spaces on the strength of the layout plan”.

The DDA, however, told the court that its decision was “only a change in layout plan”, which did not need the legal process for amending the Master Plan.

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The court accepted that a layout plan can be changed this way, but said the change must still follow the Master Plan. “In the present case, the Master Plan specifically describes what constitutes OCF. Local shopping and convenience shopping do not form part of that description. Hence, prima facie, the modified layout plan does not conform to the Master Plan of Delhi, 2021,” the court said.

It said residents would “suffer irreparable loss and injury” if third parties got rights over the land, while a stay would cause “no prejudice” to the DDA or the builder.

The court stayed the change of use until the next hearing on February 26, 2027.