Building plan sanction stuck after you paid the fees? Work through Ramesh's file

Reviewed on: 2026-06-12.

Ramesh owns a 1,500 sq ft plot in Bhopal. His architect filed a ground-plus-one house plan on the Madhya Pradesh online building permission system on 3 February and paid Rs 18,400 in scrutiny and permission fees the same day. On 28 May the portal still showed “under scrutiny”. No objection had ever reached him. Here is how Ramesh forced a decision in about five weeks, and how the same method works in your city. The key fact he learned first: the fee receipt only registers the application. Sanction needs scrutiny, objections cleared, and often a site inspection. The receipt proves your side is done; the law then puts the clock on the authority's side.

Madhya Pradesh notifies building permission as a service under its Lok Sewa Guarantee Adhiniyam, 2010, with a fixed working-day limit for residential plans of his size (check the current notification for the exact figure; low-risk residential categories also have a fast-track route). Most states have an equivalent: Karnataka's Sakala, Bihar's RTPS, the Punjab and Haryana Right to Service Acts, and citizen charters of municipal corporations elsewhere. The limit matters because it converts “the file is moving” into “the named officer is in default”.

Ramesh printed the notified timeline, put it beside his 3 February acknowledgement, and counted. The limit was crossed in March. That single page became the spine of everything he filed afterwards.

Find your own number on your corporation, development authority or state service guarantee portal before writing a single letter. A complaint without the timeline is a request. A complaint with it is a case.

Ramesh gave the dealing building officer a one-page letter: application number, dates of submission and payment, the portal status, and four questions. The exact pending stage. The officer currently holding the file. All objections, consolidated, with one deadline to reply. The date by which a decision would issue. He took a stamped acknowledgement on his copy.

Two things make this letter work. It asks for objections consolidated, which blocks the common tactic of releasing objections one at a time to restart the clock. And it creates dated proof that the applicant asked, which the authority cannot later deny.

No reply came, so Ramesh filed an RTI with the corporation's PIO. The corporation is a public authority, so the file, its noting sheet and the inspection record are all reachable. His application asked:

Under the RTI Act, 2005, regarding building permission application
no. [X] dated [date] for plot [number, address]:
1. The date the application was received and its current stage.
2. Certified copy of the file noting sheet from receipt till date.
3. Copy of the site inspection report, if conducted, with date.
4. The complete list of objections recorded on the file, with dates.
5. The time limit applicable to this service under the MP Lok Sewa
   Guarantee Adhiniyam, 2010, and whether it stands crossed.

The reply, due in 30 days, showed the file had sat with one assistant engineer since mid-February with a single unsigned query about the plot's road width, never communicated to anyone. Question 5 forced the corporation to admit on its own letterhead that the notified limit was crossed. Adapt the same five asks to your authority; filing steps are at how to file RTI online, and if the PIO stalls, the first appeal is the next move.

With the RTI reply attached, Ramesh filed a first appeal under the Lok Sewa Guarantee Act to the notified appellate officer. These appeals are decided fast because the defaulting officer faces a personal fine, which in MP and several other states can be directed to be paid to the applicant as compensation. The sanction issued within three weeks, with the road-width query resolved at a hearing in ten minutes.

Where your state has no service guarantee law covering building permission, the same escalation runs through the city engineer or commissioner and the state grievance portal, with the RTI reply doing the heavy lifting.

Some states have a deemed-sanction rule. Under section 45 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, a plan undecided within the statutory period can be treated as deemed permitted, subject to conditions. Madhya Pradesh's online system provides deemed or auto-approval for notified low-risk residential categories. Other states have nothing of the kind. Three cautions apply everywhere. The rule never cures a plan that violates the bye-laws. The conditions and covered categories are narrow. And building on an assumed deemed sanction without written confirmation invites a stop-work notice. Get the deemed position confirmed in writing, through the authority or your RTI, before any work starts.

• Treating the fee receipt as approval and starting construction.
• Chasing by phone for months with no dated paper trail.
• Answering objections one at a time without demanding consolidation.
• Not checking whether a service guarantee timeline covers building permission in your state.
• Filing the RTI against the architect. RTI reaches the corporation, not your private consultant. A non-performing architect is a consumer dispute.
• Relying on deemed approval without written confirmation.

There is no single national limit. Notified service guarantee timelines for residential plans commonly run 30 to 60 working days, and authority citizen charters say similar things. Find your authority's notified figure; it is the number every complaint hangs on.

Refund rules vary by authority. Scrutiny fees are often non-refundable once processing starts, while sanction fees may be partly refundable on rejection or withdrawal. Ask in writing quoting your application number, and use RTI to obtain the applicable refund policy and any order passed on your request.

Reply to each through your architect with dated proof, and write to the officer asking that all objections be consolidated with a single deadline. If they continue trickling, the RTI noting sheet shows whether the objections were genuine or added to dress up the delay. That noting is strong material for the appeal.

The architect handles the technical side, since the drawings and bye-law compliance are his trade. The owner files the status letter, the RTI and the service guarantee appeal in his own name. The two tracks together move files that either alone does not.

No. RTI produces the file's truth: where it sits, who holds it, what objections exist, and whether the time limit is crossed. The approval itself comes from the authority, pushed by the escalation and the appeal that the RTI reply arms.

Only the addressee. Panchayats and district town and country planning offices that issue permissions are also public authorities under RTI, and several states' service guarantee notifications cover them too. The sequence is identical. If your plot first needs agricultural land conversion, settle that stage first; see NA conversion order delayed.

• Builder not providing the occupancy certificate copy
• Builder has the OC but refuses possession handover
• Agricultural land NA conversion order delayed
• Blacklisting notice issued to a small contractor
• All practical guides
• State RTI portal directory

Download the building plan sanction follow-up checklist (PDF).