Chandigarh employees to get flats at 2008 rates, rules High Court

Chandigarh, May 30

Nearly 16 years after a housing scheme was launched for UT employees, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that the applicants would get the flats at the brochure rates applicable then. The order was pronounced in the open court today, but detailed judgment by the Bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Lalit Batra was awaited.

“The High Court has allowed employees’ petition. In the open court, the Bench said the rates given in the 2008 brochure would be applicable. It also said the 2012 MHA notification on land to be given on commercial rates would have prospective effect,” said senior advocate Anupam Gupta. He was one of the counsel in the matter.

The proposal to allot land to the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) was approved in 2019, paving the way for construction of apartments for no less than 3,930 allottees. The development took place on a petition filed by Phool Kumar Saini and other petitioners against the CHB and another respondent. The petitioners were seeking directions to board and another respondent to implement the Self-Financing Housing Scheme-2008 on a leasehold basis for 99 years for employees of the Chandigarh Administration.

The court was told that the housing scheme for the employees was launched in February 2008 by the Union Territory, Chandigarh. The draw of lots was held on November 4, 2010, and approximately 3,950 employees were successful. But nothing was apparently done by the CHB. Even acceptance-cum-demand letters were not issued to the successful applicants and “the bureaucrats at high level were sleeping over the matter”.

The petitioners had added the CHB was apparently more interested in providing houses to encroachers. They were getting houses and tenements free of cost as “in all this the CHB gets an opportunity to do bungling”.

On the other hand, the successful applicants like the petitioners having a legitimate right to get a house by making payment as prescribed in the brochure were “left in doldrums”. The petitioners claimed they were also being “prejudiced severely”.

MHA notification on land

“The High Court has allowed employees’ petition. In the open court, the Bench said the rates given in the 2008 brochure would be applicable. It also said the 2012 MHA notification on land to be given on commercial rates would have prospective effect,” said senior advocate Anupam Gupta