HC directs UT not to act on employees’ housing scheme

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 16

Acting on petitions alleging that the Chandigarh Housing Board was charging five times the initial price for land after the launch of a “self-financing housing scheme” for UT Administration employees, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today directed the respondents not to take any action in pursuance of a public notice issued in this regard.

The Bench of Justice Daya Chaudhary and Justice Sudhir Mittal made it clear that the order would remain in force at least till October 1 – the next date of hearing in the matter. The directions came on petitions filed by Dr Brahm Parkash Yadav and other petitioners against the Union of India and other respondents through senior advocate VK Jindal and Puneet Gupta.

In one of the petitions, Gupta stated that the respondent board changed the land price from Rs 7,920 per sq yard to Rs 74,131 per sq yard to the utter shock and surprise of the successful petitioners.

Gupta added that it resulted in manifold increase in the price of the dwelling units and caused grave prejudice to the successful petitioners, who waited for the implementation of the scheme over a long period of 11 years. 

He said the petitioners had been maintaining their eligibility since January 2008 and could not apply or acquire any residential unit within the tricity. “Despite the applicants not being at fault, the allotment of land had now been revised purely as an inter-departmental measure causing manifold increase in the price of the dwelling unit rendering it beyond the reach of the petitioners,” he added. 

The UT Administration had earlier told the High Court that the process of dispensing self-financing dwelling  units to the applicants could proceed with a flexible payment schedule. The submission came after the approval of a proposal to allot land to the CHB, paving the way for construction of apartments for 3,930 allottees.   The housing scheme for the employees was launched in February 2008. The draw of lots was held on November 4, 2010, and over 3,900 employees were successful. However, nothing was apparently done by the CHB. Even acceptance-cum-demand letters were not issued to the successful applicants and “bureaucrats at high level were sleeping over the matter”.

The petitioners had added that 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 such as the petitioners, having a legitimate right to get a house by making payment as prescribed in the brochure, were “left in doldrums”.