Layout approval RTI: DTCP, TCP and building plans

A delayed approval is rarely a mystery. The file almost always exists, has moved between desks, and sits with a named officer waiting for a noting nobody has made. No counter clerk will tell you this. An RTI puts the same facts on paper, with a deadline attached.

A plan file travels through a chain — dealing clerk, assistant town planner, senior town planner, district town planner, often a monthly committee — and every hop leaves a record: a receipt entry, a noting, an objection memo, a query letter. All of it is “information” under section 2(f) of the RTI Act, 2005, which covers records, documents, memos, opinions, circulars, orders and reports held by a public authority.

You are asking for documents that already exist — exactly what section 6 lets any citizen do. The authority must reply within 30 days under section 7(1). “File is under process” does not satisfy the section when you asked for dated file movement.

Filing to the wrong public authority is the commonest reason these RTIs die in transfer.

• Layout approval — carving land into plots, land use change, colony licensing: the Directorate of Town and Country Planning or state Town Planning Department.
• Building permit — construction on an approved plot: the municipal corporation, council or panchayat building branch.
• Builder projects — the RTI goes to the town planning authority, with a parallel remedy before the state Real Estate Regulatory Authority under the RERA Act, 2016.

Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak, a retired government doctor, applied for the building plan of a small house on a plot he had held for years. Weeks of counter visits produced only “come next week”. He then filed a short RTI asking for status, file movement, objections and the officer holding the file. The reply, inside the 30-day limit, showed the truth: one objection had been raised about a setback calculation, his reply had never been placed before the sanctioning committee, and the file had been lying with the assistant town planner for weeks.

He applied again attaching the RTI reply, and the sanction followed. The RTI does not order approval — it converts an invisible queue into a documented delay with a named officer attached, and that usually unblocks a genuine file.

To:
The Public Information Officer,
[Directorate of Town and Country Planning / municipal
building branch, office name and full address]

Subject: Application under section 6 of the RTI Act, 2005 —
file movement and status of building plan / layout file

Sir/Madam,

Kindly provide, in respect of building plan / layout
application No. [NUMBER] dated [DATE] for property
[ADDRESS], scrutiny fee Rs. [AMOUNT] receipt No. [NUMBER]:

1. Current status of the application and stage of processing
   as on the date of reply.
2. Date-wise file movement from receipt to the present
   stage.
3. Each objection raised, date, reply submitted, and how it
   was disposed of.
4. Name, designation and office of the officer with whom
   the file is lying, and since when.
5. Sanctioned timeline for grant or refusal under the
   applicable rules, and reason for delay beyond it.

Fee of Rs. 10 paid by [IPO / court fee stamp / online
payment, as per state rules].

Yours faithfully,
[Name]
[Postal address, phone, email]
[Date]

Check the fee and accepted mode for your state before filing — most charge Rs. 10 — via RTI fees by state.

• Day 30 — reply due under section 7(1).
• No reply or a bad reply — first appeal to the First Appellate Authority within 30 days, section 19(1); the FAA must decide within 30 days, extendable to 45, section 19(6).
• FAA order against you or absent — second appeal to the State Information Commission within 90 days of the FAA decision, section 19(3). Draft appeals with the first appeal tool.

For chronic delay a High Court writ remains open. The RTI is the cheapest first move: ten rupees for paper you can attach to every later forum.

• Filing to the municipality when the layout file is with the town planning directorate, or the reverse.
• Omitting the file or fee receipt number — without it the PIO can honestly say the record cannot be located.
• Asking “why is it delayed” in the abstract instead of dated file movement, objections and the officer holding the file.
• Accepting “under process” and letting the appeal window slip.

The town planning directorate deals with layouts, land use and colony licences. The municipal building branch deals with the structure on an approved plot — plan, permit and occupancy certificate. Many approvals touch both; file where your file physically sits.

Third-party confidence can protect a rival applicant's plans, not the movement of your own file. File notings are information under section 2(f), and Information Commissions have consistently directed town planning bodies to disclose status, movement and objections on an applicant's own file. Any refusal must carry recorded, appealable reasons.

Yes. Buyers of a stuck project can seek the project's sanction and file movement from the town planning authority, and approach the state RERA authority about the promoter's delay.

• Illegal construction RTI
• Land records RTI
• File RTI online — 12 steps
• RTI — 25 questions answered
• The RTI Playbook book — drafting applications that cannot be dodged.

Last reviewed: 26 August 2026.