HC raps Chandigarh UT Admn for not allotting plot for 4 decades

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 28

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has rapped the Chandigarh Administration in a case where a city resident was made to “bang his head against the wall” for a plot for almost four decades even after paying the entire price more than 30 years ago.

The Bench also imposed token costs of Rs 1 lakh on the respondent — the UT Administration. The amount will be payable to the petitioner. The respondents were further directed to allot and offer the possession of a one kanal plot immediately to the petitioner. For the purpose, the Bench set a four-week deadline. The judgment by Justice Ajay Tewari and Justice Lalit Batra came on a petition against the Administration and other respondents by M/s Indian Spices Corporation through counsel NS Shekhawat.

The Bench asserted: “Today, a period of 38 years has elapsed since the petitioner has been banging his head against the wall for getting the plot. We are informed, and it is not denied by the counsel for the respondent, that the petitioner has paid the entire price of the plot also more than 30 years ago.”

The Bench added that the case, in its considered opinion, was not only eminently suitable for issuance of direction to allot a plot immediately to the petitioner, but also where exemplary costs were required to be imposed upon the respondent — the Administration — for “so obdurately refusing to honour its affidavits and contractual obligations”.

The Bench added that it, however, was refraining itself from doing so and deemed it appropriate to impose token costs. The petitioner had challenged the action of the Chandigarh Administration of holding him ineligible for allotment of a 500 square yard industrial plot he had applied for in 1981.

The stand of the UT Administration was that the possession of the plot could not be given due to some reasons. Thereafter, protracted litigation took place right up to the Supreme Court. During the pendency of the contempt petition filed by the petitioner in the apex court, an affidavit, dated July 21, 2006, was filed by the the UT Director of Industries, wherein it was categorically and unequivocally admitted that the petitioner was entitled to the allotment of a plot.

The Bench asserted that the impugned order rejecting the claim was, thereafter, passed on the grounds that the petitioner inherited a one-fourth share in an industrial plot owned by his father in 2003, no less than 22 years after the applications were invited.

“Before us, senior counsel for the Chandigarh Administration is not in a position to deny that the ownership of an industrial plot by the father was not a disqualification in 1981. Resultantly, this reason is clearly extraneous and is in any case being applied retrospectively after 22 years,” the Bench added.

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