I Have Finished Building My House in Bengaluru but Have No OC and BESCOM Refuses Power: What Can I Do?

BESCOM asks for the occupancy certificate because two rules outside its own office tell it to: Section 246(5) of the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 says that where an OC has not been issued it is not within the competence of the electricity supply company to give a permanent connection, and the Supreme Court's judgment of 17 December 2024 in the U.P. Avas Evam Vikas Parishad case directed that service connections be given "only after the production of the completion/occupation certificate". The answer for an owner-builder is not to fight BESCOM but to extract the OC from the city corporation: Section 241 fixes how the application is decided and what thirty days of silence mean, the Karnataka High Court held on 10 July 2026 in W.P. No. 20839 of 2026 that a condition not imposed at sanction, such as a free relinquishment deed for road widening, cannot be added at the OC stage, and a writ under Article 226 can carry a direction to issue the certificate within weeks. The one-time exemption for small plots, widened to 2,400 square feet in June 2026, reached only buildings completed by 31 May 2026 and closed to new applications on 6 July 2026, as reported.

Part of the RERA and homebuyer disputes practice at S Jain & Attorneys, Bangalore.

This page is for the owner of a plot within the Greater Bengaluru Area who has built a house or a small building to a sanctioned plan and has no occupancy certificate and no permanent BESCOM connection. If you bought a flat and the promoter never obtained the OC, read our guide on a Bangalore buyer's remedies without an OC. An OC withdrawn after issue under Section 241(6) is a different fight.

Where you stand depends on why the certificate has not come.

Deadline warning. Section 241(1) requires every person who has constructed a building in accordance with the Act to apply for the occupancy certificate "within thirty days from the date of completion of such construction". A late application is not fatal on the words of the section, but it is the first thing an officer will point to.

Four facts frame what follows.

Does BESCOM really need an occupancy certificate for my house?

Yes, for a permanent connection, and not at BESCOM's discretion. Section 246(5) of the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 provides that "in cases where occupancy certificate has not been issued by the Corporation partial or final, in occupying the building, it would not be within the competence of Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board, so also Bengaluru Electricity Supply Company in giving a permanent Connection for, Supply of water and Supply of Electricity respectively to the building, in respect of which occupancy certificate has not been obtained". The Act applies within the Greater Bengaluru Area and has been in force since 15 May 2025. Its Section 361 repeals the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Act, 2020 and deems sanctions and licences granted under it to have been granted under the new Act.

The second source is the Supreme Court. In Civil Appeal No. 14604 of 2024, 2024 INSC 990, decided on 17 December 2024, the court dismissed an appeal against the demolition of an unauthorised commercial building on a residential plot in Meerut and, "in the larger public interest", issued directions to every State. Direction (iv) reads: "All the necessary service connections, such as, Electricity, water supply, sewerage connection, etc., shall be given by the service provider / Board to the buildings only after the production of the completion/occupation certificate." The judgment was ordered to be circulated to every High Court and every Chief Secretary for strict compliance, and BESCOM has cited it for the applications it has kept pending since 2025, as reported. The same directions cut the other way for the corporation: direction (iii) requires that, on inspection and satisfaction that the building accords with the permission "and there is no deviation", the certificate "be issued by the authority concerned to the parties concerned, without causing undue delay", direction (ix) requires any application or appeal against non-issuance to be decided within ninety days, and direction (xi) tells banks to verify the certificate before lending. Whether a Section 241(7) exemption sits comfortably with a direction that connections follow production of the certificate is a question no court had decided at the time of writing.

The Electricity Act, 2003 does not help you around it. Section 43(1) of the Act obliges a distribution licensee to give supply "within one month after receipt of the application requiring such supply", and Section 43(3) carries a penalty "which may extend to one thousand rupees for each day of default", but the Explanation defines "application" as one "complete in all respects in the appropriate form, as required by the distribution licensee, along with documents showing payment of necessary charges and other compliances". On our reading the occupancy certificate is one of those compliances once Section 246(5) and the Supreme Court's direction are in place, so the one-month clock does not start until it is produced.

Am I covered by the 1,200 or 2,400 square foot exemption, and what if I missed 31 May 2026?

Only if your building is small, residential, built to a sanctioned plan, complete by 31 May 2026 and brought within one of the two windows, as reported. Section 241(7) of the Act says that "the Government may notify the category of building which shall be exempted from obtaining occupancy certificate", and the State used that power twice. The first order, issued in September 2025 as reported in the Deccan Herald, exempted buildings of ground plus two or stilt plus three floors on plots of up to 1,200 square feet within the Greater Bengaluru Area. The second, an Urban Development Department order of 5 June 2026 described in a law firm's quarterly note, widened it to plots of up to 2,400 square feet with a twenty percent variance, ground plus three or stilt plus four floors, in the five city corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority, provided the building is complete, the electricity application was submitted on or before 31 May 2026, and the supply company inspects the building and places a photograph on record before releasing the connection. Unsanctioned buildings and B khata properties are outside it, as reported. Neither order was available from an official source at the time of writing, so every figure here is as reported and should be checked against the order.

The Energy Department then issued an order on 22 June 2026, reported by the Deccan Herald, granting a one-time relaxation for permanent connections to residential buildings without an OC on plots of up to 2,400 square feet with the same variance, for buildings completed on or before 31 May 2026, with applications within fifteen days. BESCOM asked eligible owners to apply by 6 July 2026. Three classes were covered, as reported: owners who had already applied for a permanent connection, owners on a temporary connection who had not applied, and owners with no connection at all, each with a geo-tagged photograph of the completed building taken in the presence of a BESCOM officer. That order was stated to apply across the State, and it fully exempted farmhouses and farm buildings in rural areas.

If you completed after 31 May 2026, or did not apply within the window, no further window had been announced at the time of writing. Your route is the ordinary one: the occupancy certificate under Section 241, then the permanent connection under Section 246(5). The exemption, on our reading, only excused producing the certificate to the supply company. It did not regularise a deviation, convert a khata or make a building saleable with a clean record.

The corporation wants a relinquishment deed for road widening before the OC: can it insist?

Not where the sanction was granted without that condition, on the Karnataka High Court's order of 10 July 2026. The petitioners in W.P. No. 20839 of 2026 (LB-BMP) owned a plot of 2,648.81 square metres at Doddakannalli, held a sanctioned plan and building licence of 5 February 2024 under the BBMP Act for a basement, a ground floor and three upper floors, and a commencement certificate of 15 February 2025 issued after verifying that the construction accorded with the plan. When they applied for the occupancy certificate, the Assistant Director of Town Planning of the Bengaluru East City Corporation issued an endorsement on 1 July 2026 stating that the property abutted a 24 metre road which the Revised Master Plan 2015 required to be widened to 45 metres, and that the owners must execute a relinquishment deed for 656.46 square metres, free of cost, before the certificate could issue.

Justice B.M. Shyam Prasad allowed the petition at the preliminary hearing. The court held that the request for an occupancy certificate "should be examined based on the conditions upon which the sanction is granted and the construction is completed", that the relinquishment "was not insisted upon while granting the building license and sanctioned plan" nor when the commencement certificate issued, and that "post facto conditions cannot be insisted upon, and there must be a specific provision permitting the same if such conditions are to be sustained". No provision was shown in the BBMP Act requiring relinquishment as a condition of sanction, nor in the new Act "permitting such insistence at the time of issuing the Occupancy Certificate". Invoking Article 300A, the court quashed the endorsement and directed the officer to re-verify that the construction accorded with the sanctioned plan and to complete the process of issuing the certificate, or assign reasons if it could not be issued for any other reason, within eight weeks of receiving a certified copy, and to communicate any legal levy still payable.

Three limits must be read with it. First, the order "cannot create any equity in favour of the petitioners in the event there are any proceedings for acquiring the portion required for widening of the road", so the road can still be widened, by acquisition with compensation rather than a deed extracted at the OC counter. Second, Section 226 is addressed to a khatadar who requests "sanction of building plan before the road widening is taken up" and requires relinquishment "before the sanction is accorded", and two times the surrendered area may be allowed as floor area ratio in lieu of compensation. On our reading, and on the court's, that stage is sanction, not completion. Third, this is a single judge's oral order at the first hearing, with no appeal or stay found at the time of writing, and a corporation may still insist on a deed at sanction for a future building.

Key takeaway. The occupancy certificate is decided on the conditions of the sanction you actually hold. A condition that appears for the first time in an endorsement after completion needs a specific statutory provision, and for a free relinquishment deed at the OC stage the Karnataka High Court found none.

My building deviates from the plan: what can still be regularised?

A small deviation can be compounded with the certificate, a larger one cannot, and the Act sets the ceiling while the bye-laws set the figure. Section 241(4) allows the Commissioner to grant the certificate "if the building is constructed in accordance with the sanctioned plan or within the condonable limits, as may be specified in the bye-laws", with the proviso that "the condonable limits shall not be more than ten percent of the permissible limits, and also the compounding fee as notified under this chapter shall be paid to the Corporation". The same sub-section lets the Commissioner penalise an architect or engineer whose completion report does not match the plan, so the professional who certifies your as-built drawings under Section 241(2) will not sign what is not there.

Beyond the condonable limit the Act is blunt. Section 246(2) provides that "the violated portion of the building shall be demolished by the khatadar or promoter at his own cost and risk", and Section 243 sets the procedure: a site inspection, a notice to a joint inspection with not less than ten days to produce documents, a provisional order, a show cause notice of not less than fifteen days, a personal hearing before confirmation, and recovery of the cost of demolition as arrears of property tax. The Supreme Court's direction (iii) points the same way: where a deviation is noticed, "the process of issuance of completion/occupation certificate should be deferred, unless and until the deviations pointed out are completely rectified". The Act's own regularisation section is not open to you either: Section 249 reaches only a building "constructed at least one year prior to the date of notification of this Act", on payment of a percentage of the market value of the violating portion, so on its words a house finished in 2025 or 2026 is outside it. Our guide on B khata to A khata conversion explains why the older akrama sakrama route is frozen.

How long can the corporation sit on my application, and what does Section 241 say about a deemed OC?

Thirty days is the number the Act uses, but what follows them is a right to occupy, not a certificate in your hand. Sub-section (1) of Section 241 requires the application within thirty days of completion. Sub-section (2) requires it to be "duly certified by an empanelled architect or engineer along with the as-built floor plans and completion report of the building". Sub-section (3) requires the Additional Chief Town Planner or his officers to inspect the building, after which "the Commissioner may grant or reject the application for occupancy certificate" on his advice. Sub-section (5) then bars anyone from occupying the building until, in its words, "(a) permission has been received from the Commissioner in this behalf, or (b) the Commissioner has failed for thirty days after receipt of the notice of completion to intimate his refusal of the said permission".

Clause (b) is the deemed OC people speak of, and it is narrower than the phrase suggests. On its words it lifts the statutory bar on occupation once thirty days pass without an intimated refusal. It does not say that a certificate is deemed to have issued, and Section 246(5) speaks of a certificate "issued" and "obtained", so BESCOM will not treat a silence-based right as the document it must see. The petitioners in W.P. 20839/2026 pleaded exactly this as an alternative prayer, asking for a declaration that an unlawful relinquishment demand "not constituting a lawful intimation of refusal" left them entitled to occupy under Section 241(5)(b). The court granted the main relief and did not decide that prayer, so no Karnataka ruling on the clause was found at the time of writing. One more clock matters: Section 250 gives a person aggrieved by the Commissioner's decision an appeal to the Chief Commissioner of the Greater Bengaluru Authority within thirty days, to be decided within ninety days. On our reading, a refusal for a reason outside the Act is both appealable under Section 250 and open to a writ, and the writ is faster where the refusal is on a point of law rather than fact.

Can I sell or get a loan without an OC?

You can sign a sale deed, but lenders are told not to lend, and the building cannot lawfully be occupied. Section 246(4) of the Act provides that "the financial institutions shall not extend loan facilities for constructions carried out in violation of the sanctioned plans", and direction (xi) of the Supreme Court's December 2024 judgment requires banks to sanction a loan against a building only after verifying the completion or occupation certificate. A house built to plan with the certificate pending is not a violation, so a lender may in principle proceed, but in practice banks ask for the certificate before disbursing. On our reading nothing in the Act bars the Sub-Registrar from registering the sale, and the khata questions at that stage are in our guide on e-khata and khata transfer in Bangalore. In practice a building without an OC sells at a discount, to a cash buyer, with the Section 241(5) occupation bar passing to the purchaser.

Temporary versus permanent connection: what is the difference, and can I keep the temporary one?

A temporary connection is construction power, and it is not what Section 246(5) is about. That sub-section speaks only of "a permanent Connection", which is why BESCOM has continued temporary supply to completed houses while refusing to convert it. The Deccan Herald reported on 5 June 2026 that close to 1.5 lakh applications for conversion from temporary to permanent supply were pending with BESCOM, and that owners were paying nearly double on a temporary connection. The June 2026 relaxation was built around that queue, as reported. Outside it, a temporary connection buys time at a price. It does not ripen into a permanent one, and years on it create no right to conversion. The conversion follows the certificate.

The writ route: what do I ask for, and what did the July 2026 petition get?

A writ under Article 226 against the corporation, with BESCOM joined so that the connection follows the certificate, is the route the July 2026 petitioners took, and their prayers are a template. They asked for certiorari quashing the endorsement so far as it required the relinquishment deed as a condition precedent to the certificate, a declaration that exacting land free of cost as a condition of an OC for a building built to the sanctioned plan was without authority of law, ultra vires Sections 226 and 241 and violative of Article 300A, a mandamus to decide the application under Section 241 "solely on the basis of the building's conformity with the sanctioned plan" within a fixed time and to release the permanent connection on issuance under Section 246(5), and, in the alternative, a declaration that they were entitled to occupy under Section 241(5)(b) because no valid refusal had been intimated within thirty days. The State, the Greater Bengaluru Authority, the city corporation, its town planning officers and BESCOM were all respondents.

What the court granted shows what a writ can do. The endorsement was quashed, the officer was directed to issue the certificate "without insisting on the Relinquishment Deed" within eight weeks of receiving a certified copy, subject to re-verifying conformity with the plan, or to assign reasons if it could not be issued for any other reason. No direction went to BESCOM, which was unrepresented, and the order does not say why. The deemed-occupation prayer was not decided, and any future acquisition was protected. The drafting lesson is to lead with the sanction and the commencement certificate, to plead that the building conforms to the plan, and to ask for a timetable rather than a bare quashing, since a quashing without a time limit puts you back in the queue. Our High Court practice files these petitions.

Step by step: from the stuck application to the permanent connection

1. Assemble the sanction file: the sanctioned plan and building licence, the commencement certificate, every fee receipt, the khata extract and tax receipts, and dated photographs of the completed building.
2. Have the empanelled architect or engineer prepare the as-built floor plans and completion report that Section 241(2) requires, stating any deviation and whether it is within the condonable limit, and tender the compounding fee if it is.
3. File the application within thirty days of completion under Section 241(1) and keep the acknowledgment with its number and date. If you are late, file anyway and say so.
4. Diarise thirty days from the notice of completion. If nothing comes, write to the Commissioner citing the application, Section 241(3) and the Supreme Court's direction (iii), and ask for the decision in writing.
5. If an endorsement adds a condition that was not in the sanction, reply within days refusing it, quoting the sanction and the July 2026 order, and ask the officer to decide on the plan alone.
6. If the refusal is on a point of fact, such as a deviation, consider the Section 250 appeal within thirty days. If it is on a point of law, or there is only silence, file the writ with the four prayers above, joining BESCOM.
7. On receiving the certificate, apply to BESCOM for conversion or a new permanent connection with the certificate attached, and hold BESCOM to the one month in Section 43(1) of the Electricity Act from the date the application is complete.

What it costs and how long it takes

The corporation's own charges are the scrutiny and compounding fees notified under the Act, and the July 2026 order directed the corporation to communicate any legal levy payable beyond what the owners had already paid, which is the correct way to ask for the figure. That writ was filed against an endorsement of 1 July 2026 and allowed on 10 July 2026 at the preliminary hearing, with eight weeks for the certificate or reasons, a pace possible where the point is a condition added after sanction and the record is clean. A contested petition alleging a deviation takes longer, because the court will not itself inspect the building. A Section 250 appeal is to be decided within ninety days. Professional fees turn on how many hearings the corporation forces, and any figure is indicative only.

Where owner-builders go wrong

In our practice the owners who lose a year on this are rarely those with a deviation. They are owners who treated the OC application as the architect's job and never saw the acknowledgment, so the thirty days under Section 241 cannot be proved. They are owners who signed the relinquishment deed at the counter because the officer called it routine, and then found that Section 226(iii) denies compensation for land relinquished under that section. They are owners who paid the temporary tariff for two years waiting for a new exemption window, and owners who wrote to BESCOM, received the standard reply citing the Supreme Court, and stopped. The first thing we ask for is the sanction and the commencement certificate, because every later demand is measured against them.

Common mistake. Fighting BESCOM. Section 246(5) and the Supreme Court's direction (iv) tie the supply company's hands until the certificate exists, so a complaint or writ aimed at BESCOM alone asks it to do what the law says it cannot. Aim at the corporation, and join BESCOM so that the connection follows the order.

The sections that decide this, on one card each.

Frequently Asked Questions

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified advocate for advice on your specific situation.

Related Guides

The firm's property and real estate law practice advises owner-builders on sanctions, occupancy certificates and corporation endorsements, and its High Court litigation practice files writ petitions against city corporations and utilities.

• No Occupancy Certificate? A Bangalore Buyer's Remedies
• B-Khata to A-Khata Conversion and E-Khata in Karnataka: The Legal Position
• Electricity Consumer Rights in Karnataka (2026): Bills, Disconnection and KERC's New Rules