HC upholds cancellation of JDA land allotment

Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, May 21: High Court has upheld the cancellation of allotment of a piece of land to the petitioner by the Jammu Development Authority (JDA) on the directives of the then Chief Minister of erstwhile State of J&K without adopting the guidelines fixed for such allotment and approval of the competent authority.
The petitioner-Rajinder Kumar Bhat challenged the order issued by the JDA cancelling the earlier order of allotment of a piece of land in Roop Nagar Jammu on the directives of the then Chief Minister in the year 2002.
The JDA in opposition to the writ petition, have resisted and controverted the contentions and grounds raised and urged by the petitioner in the writ petition and have sought dismissal of the writ petition, on the ground that the allotment made in favour of the petitioner vide order dated 15.11.2002 was without adopting the guidelines fixed for such allotment and also without approval of the competent authority.
It has been stated that all the allotments made by the then Vice-Chairman, Mohammad Aslam Qureshi, were ordered to be kept in abeyance by the Government vide order dated 05.05.2003; thereafter the matter was placed before the Board of Directors of Jammu Development Authority on its 63rd meeting held on 19.01.2004 wherein it was decided to cancel all these allotments including the allotment of the petitioner.
The further stand taken by the respondent-JDA in the objections is that since the allotment made in favour of the petitioner-Kumar was an irregular allotment, as such, there is no question of handing over the possession of plot of land in pursuance of the irregular allotment.
Justice V C Koul while dismissing the plea by recording that the same is without any merit observed that the allotment made in favour of petitioner-Kumar was without adopting the guidelines fixed for such allotment and also without approval of the competent authority.
“The matter was placed before the Board of Directors of Jammu Development Authority and the Board of Directors of JDA decided to cancel all the allotments including the allotment of the petitioner. Accordingly, allotment made in favour of the petitioner was cancelled”, Justice Koul said.