SC dismisses UT petition on resumption of coal depot site

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 16

The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition of the Chandigarh Administration challenging a High Court order in the case of resumption of a coal depot site in Sector 16 on the grounds that it was filed too late and that there was no justification in condoning the delay of 232 days.

The Estate Office had challenged the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dated November 24, 2014, setting aside its (Estate Office’s) resumption order.

The Estate Office had resumed the site of the coal depot in 1999 on the grounds that the site was misused and was being used as a service station while as per the allotment rules, it could only be used as coal depot.

The owner of the coal depot challenged the resumption order in the High Court.

During the hearing of the case, the Administration issued a notification on February 24, 2006, permitting allottees of all commercial sites to pursue any trade mentioned in the Schedule II, i.e. new general trade, without applying for conversion of trade and without paying conversion fee, subject to the condition that a written intimation about the trade being pursued was given to the Administration.

Relying upon the notification, the High Court, in its order, stated that the commercial site of coal depot could be used for any of the general trade purposes without payment of the conversion fees. Since the site in question was being used for general trade, it cannot be said that the same is being misused.

The High Court directed the Administration to frame norms for the coal depot within a period of three months.

When the order was not implemented, the petitioner filed a contempt petition, on which the High Court, on January 28 this year, directed the Estate Office to release the submitted building plan of the depot within four weeks.

But the Estate Office, instead of following the order, filed a special leave petition challenging the High Court order, which was dismissed on February 12 this year.

KK Agarwal, the petitioner, said despite the High Court order, he was yet to get the building plans and the site was still being shown as resumed on the UT website.