Issue of allotment of plot under LDP category by LIT remains unresolved

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, July 30

A revision petition, filed by a city resident, Sham Singh Harikay (now deceased), against the refusal of the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) authorities to get the sale deed of a plot allotted to him under the ‘locally displaced persons (LDP) category registered even after orders issued by the district forum, the state and national commissions, still remains unresolved as the Punjab State Consumers Disputes Redressal Commission has again remanded the case back to the district forum (now designated as district commission) for final disposal.

The order

Justice Dhaliwal observed that as the matter was pending before the district commission for long (past 14 years) since the filing of the complaint and for over 30 years since the date of acquisition of the land of the complainant’s father, the district commission was directed to decide the matter preferably within three months from the date of receipt of the certified copy of the order.

In the last hearing on July 23, this year, president of the state commission Justice Paramjit Sigh Dhaliwal, after hearing arguments of both counsels for the petitioner and the respondent (LIT), ordered that since the president of the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum (now District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission), Ludhiana, has been appointed, the parties could agitate their case before the district commission.

“The legal heirs of the petitioner/complainant are at liberty to move appropriate application there for impleading them. Accordingly, the present revision petition stands disposed of with these directions. Parties through their counsel are directed to appear before the district commission on August 11,” the commission ruled.

Justice Dhaliwal observed that as the matter was pending before the district commission since long (past 14 years) from the filing of the complaint and over 30 years from the date of acquisition of the land of the father of the complainant, the district commission was directed to decide the matter preferably within three months from the date of receipt of the certified copy of the order.

Earlier, intervening in the argument made by the counsel for the respondent (LIT), the commission disagreed with his contention that a fraud had been committed by the petitioner along with employees of the LIT and it needed to be proved.

Justice Dhaliwal stated: “This contention cannot be accepted and such frauds can’t be allowed to be proved at this stage, before this commission, because the revision is for direction to decide the execution pending before the district commission. The fraud, if any, has been committed, is specifically required to be proved before the appropriate forum, which is passing the original decree.”

He observed that the fraud, in this case, could not be proved before this commission as the order had already been passed in favour of the complainant and the same had already been upheld up to the national commission. No such power to recall/review its own order has been conferred upon the district forum or the state commission by the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.