Three decades on, Sector 38 house owner gets justice

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Chandigarh, October 7

A resident of Sector 38 had to fight a legal battle for nearly three decades due to sheer negligence of officials of the UT Estate Office.

Amrit Pal Singh Oberoi, son of late Ranbir Singh Oberoi, filed an appeal in the court of Dr Vijay Namdeorao Zade, Chief Administrator, UT, against an order dated June 2, 1989, passed by the Assistant Estate Officer whereby house number 2864, Sector 38-C, was resumed, and a letter dated July 27 this year whereby the appellant was asked to furnish the restoration order passed by the competent authority in respect of the house.

Accepting the appeal, the Chief Administrator set aside the impugned order and the letter with the directions to correct the website by considering the house property as restored. The Chief Administrator further directed the Estate Officer to fix the responsibility of the erring officials responsible for the lapse and take appropriate action against them within three months.

Giving details of the case, Vikas Jain, the counsel for the appellant, stated that the house was resumed on June 2, 1989, on account of building violations. Aggrieved by the order, the appellant’s father filed an appeal before the Chief Administrator.

As per the information received under the RTI Act, the then Law Officer of the Estate Office, who had appeared before the then Chief Administrator, reported that the appeal was fixed for hearing on October 30, 1992, and the Chief Administrator restored the site in question. However, the order of restoration was not available in records.

Thereafter, Ranbir Singh again filed an appeal against the resumption order. The Chief Administrator, vide order dated December 22, 1993, dismissed the appeal as infructuous on the statement of the Law Officer and the SDO (Building) that the Chief Administrator had already restored the site in favour of the owner, stated Jain.

Jain submitted that the Chief Administrator had restored the site, but the Estate Office website showed that the property was resumed on May 16, 2007, though no record of the resumption order was available in the record.

A three-member committee of the Estate Officer also opined that the site had been restored by the Chief Administrator and recommended that the site be treated as restored and allow the office to update the official website accordingly.

After the death of his father on April 16, 1993, Amrit Pal had applied for transfer of the house in his name.

Jain stated that Amrit Pal deposited the ground rent from time to time. The Section Officer had asked the appellant to furnish the restoration order dated October 30, 1992.

Jain submitted that officials of the Estate Office had misinterpreted the order dated December 22, 1993, and treated the site as resumed.

On the contrary, the counsel for the Estate Office contended that no restoration order dated October 30, 1992, had been passed by the Chief Administrator. Thus, the Estate Office had rightly issued letter dated July 27 this year. The counsel also intimated that the controversy emerged due to wrong statements by the Law Officer as well as the officials of the Estate Office.

“The appellant should not suffer due to negligence on part of the Estate Office. For want of a clarification on the part of the Estate Office, the matter is lingering on since the past many years,” observed the Chief Administrator, while adding that the counsel for the Estate Office failed to show anything to counter the contentions of the appellant’s counsel.

“In these type of cases, the Estate Officer should have taken a clarification immediately from the court of Chief Administrator to avoid harassment to the owners of the building,” said advocate Jain.