The Hindu : New Delhi News : Cancellation of plots to Noida CGHS members upheld

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Cancellation of plots to Noida CGHS members upheld

J. Venkatesan

`Land was allotted fraudulently on the basis of a bogus list of society members'

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has upheld an order passed by the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority cancelling allotment of plots to 1,754 members of the Kendriya Karamchari Sahkari Grih Nirman Samiti, a group housing society of Central Government employees in Noida near here.

A Bench of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice Tarun Chatterjee thereby allowed an appeal filed by the Authority against a judgment of the Allahabad High Court approving the allotment of plots to the 1,754 persons totalling 323,650 square metres of land.

It was the contention of the Authority that the land was allotted in March 1995 fraudulently on the basis of a bogus list of society members.

The Authority said that after the allotment it received several complaints alleging that real members of the society were fraudulently excluded from the list of members sent to the Authority and bogus names had been included.

The allotments were cancelled in May 1998 after an inquiry conducted by the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Authority.

On a writ petition filed by the society, the High Court set aside the cancellation and approved the allotments. The Authority's appeal was directed against this judgment.

Allowing the appeal, the Bench noted that it was the effort of the Authority to verify genuineness of the members. In spite of several opportunities the details regarding membership were not furnished by the society.

The Bench said: "It cannot be said that the appellant was bound to allot land, even if the membership was not established and it was established that a large number of people were not genuine members. Allotment in the manner desired by the respondent-society would be against the very purpose of allotment flowing from the scheme in question."

The Bench said: "The High Court's order practically renders the proceedings before the Board of Revenue redundant. Findings recorded about the merits of the proceedings before the Board of Revenue when the State was not a party in the writ petition is an impermissible course adopted by the High Court."

Quashing the impugned judgment, the Bench said that if there was a question on which there was a serious dispute, which could not be satisfactorily decided without taking evidence, it should not be decided in a writ proceeding as entertained by the High Court.

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