PIL against illegal allotment of municipal flats
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 5: Division Bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Gita Mittal and First Puisne Judge Justice Rajesh Bindal, while coming down heavily on the Jammu Municipal Corporation over allotment of flats on pick and choose basis to its ex-employees, has directed the Corporation to place on record the complete details of all the properties, the dates of allotments, the particulars of allottees including designations and the nature and sizes of the property as well as the consideration/rental, which is being paid by the allottees and full details of the outstanding arrears till date.
The Division Bench further directed that the JMC shall also give details of the action taken against the allottees for non-payment of dues, if any, and this information shall be given in tabulation within one week from today.
These significant directions were passed in a much publicized Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Irtiza Mushtaq, a practicing lawyer of J&K High Court seeking quashment of orders whereby Jammu Municipal Corporation has allotted 10 municipal flats situated at Gandhi Nagar, Jammu on pick and choose basis to its ex-employees and some private persons.
Earlier, when the PIL came up for hearing, Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed with Advocates Rahul Raina, Supriya Chouhan and Mohd Zulkarnain Chowdhary appearing for the petitioner submitted that the instant PIL highlights the illegal allotment of prime JMC Flats situated at Gandhi Nagar, Jammu and the said allotments were made in favour of ex-employees without following any procedure/ criteria.
The beneficiaries include Jeet Lal Gupta, former Commissioner/Secretary to Government H&UDD, R S Jamwal, former Joint Commissioner (Adm) JMC, Madan Mohan Khajuria, ex-PA to Commissioner JMC, Bharat Bhushan (driver) JMC, Surinder Kumar PSO to Commissioner/ Secretary H&UDD, Balbir Singh (driver SUDA), Narinder Sharma (President NGO-PEACE), Chain Singh, son of Chhato Ram and Kharati Lal, son of Mani Ram.
Advocate Ahmed vehemently argued that the former Commissioner/Secretary H&UDD and former Joint Commissioner (Adm) are paying Rs 900 to Rs 1000 per month as rent for the municipal flats situated in the posh Gandhi Nagar, Jammu.
“There is complete loot of municipal assets and the beneficiaries of the prime properties are mostly the employees/kith and kin of the employees of the Corporation”, the counsel for the PIL said, adding “these instances of illegal allotment in favour of ex-employees and others is just a tip of the ice-berg as a Malaria/DTT Centre situated in front of Women’s College Parade, Jammu was illegally allotted to an ex-Chief Khilafwarzi Officer who later converted the Malaria Centre into a commercial establishment”.
After considering the submissions of Advocate Ahmed, the Division Bench observed, “by way of the instant writ petition a challenge is laid to the allotment of prime municipal properties as well as commercial properties by the Jammu Municipal Corporation on pick and choose basis without adopting or following any criteria, effecting illegal allotments of municipal quarters or flats on extraneous considerations in favour of ex-employees of Jammu Municipal Corporation as well as private persons”.
Senior Advocate R K Gupta with Advocates Prem Sadotra and Uday Baskar appeared for R S Jamwal and Madan Mohan Khajuria, ex-PA to Commissioner JMC while as Senior Advocate U K Jalali with Advocate Mohd Rayaz appeared for Chain Singh (a private person), Advocate S K Anand for Kharati Lal (private person) Advocate Ajay Bakshi for Narinder Sharma President PEACE (NGO), Advocate K K Jandial for Bharat Bhushan (driver) and Senior AAG S S Nanda appeared for Housing and Urban Development Department.
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