The Supreme Court has deprecated the practice of the Chief Minister or Ministers exercising their power in land allotment to influential persons contrary to statutory rules and established procedures.
A vacation Bench of Justices B.S. Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar said the law on the question of land allotment was very clear: no higher authority in the hierarchy (whether a Chief Minister or Ministers) or an appellate authority could exercise the power of the statutory authority; nor the superior authority could mortgage its wisdom and direct the statutory authority to act in a particular manner.
Writing the judgment, Mr. Justice Chauhan said: “If the appellate or revisional authority takes upon itself the task of the statutory authority and passes an order, it remains unenforceable for the reason that it cannot be termed an order passed under the [relevant] Act.”
The Bench gave this ruling while upholding the cancellation of the land allotment to an individual in Ghaziabad three decades ago by the then Chief Minister, holding that he had no authority to direct the Ghaziabad Development Authority to allot the land.
The Bench noted that the land was allotted on the recommendations of the Chief Minister on a representation made by the allottee, Manohar Lal, bypassing other statutory authorities. Manohar Lal was allotted a piece of commercial land in Ghaziabad in December 1979, in lieu of his residential plot which was acquired for a public purpose.
Acting on a writ petition, the Allahabad High Court quashed the allotment. The present appeal by Manohar Lal, represented by his legal heirs, is directed against this judgment.
Rejecting the appeal, the Bench pointed out that the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, who had no competence to deal with the subject under the statute, had ordered the allotment contrary to the land allotment policy.
“Any allotment made in favour of Manohar Lal had been illegal as the application could not have been entertained by the Chief Minister, and further, the appellant could not get allotment in [a] commercial area as the land policy provided only for allotment of land in [a] residential area,” it said.
During three decades of litigation, the Bench said, Manohar Lal did not approach the court with true facts, in particular the fact that he was allotted the land in the commercial area by the Ghaziabad Development Authority on the instruction of the Chief Minister. “It is a fit case for ordering enquiry or initiating proceedings for committing criminal contempt of the court as the parties succeeded in misleading the court by not disclosing the true facts. However, we are not inclined to waste the court's time further in these cases. Our experience has been that the so-called administration is not likely to wake up from its deep slumber and is never interested in redeeming the limping society from such hapless situations.”
The Bench said: “We further apprehend that our pious hope that the administration may muster courage one day to initiate disciplinary/criminal proceedings against such applicants/erring officers/employees of the authority may not come true. However, we leave the course open for the State government and the Ghaziabad Development Authority to take decision in regard to these issues and as to whether the Ghaziabad Development Authority wants to recover the possession of the land already allotted to other applicants in commercial area contrary to the land policy or value thereof adjusting the amount of compensation deposited by them, if any.”
