Telangana HC dismissed State's appeal against employee's housing board land
Hyderabad: Bringing an end to a 25-year-old litigation, the Telangana High Court on Friday declared a government order converting plots allotted to State Housing Board employees into flats as illegal and directed the board to register the plots on receipt of the amount within a period of four months.
After a detailed hearing of the matter, a bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice N.V. Shravan Kumar declared the impugned order of the government as illegal and directed the board to register the plots on receipt of the stated amount within a period of four months.
The State Housing Board had formulated a scheme in 1979 for allotment of house plots, which were classified into EWS, LIG and MIG groups. Under a notification issued in 1986, 320 Housing Board employees were allotted plots over an extent of approximately 70,000 sq. yds.
The litigation started when the government decided to convert these 320 plots into flats. The 320 employees in 2006, filed a batch of writ petitions. A single judge partly allowed the writ petitions and restricted the relief only to those, who had made full payment of the enhanced amount. The single judge also directed the board to register the plots to 107 allottees, out of the 320, who had paid the entire enhanced amount earlier.
The state government and the SHB, who were aggrieved by the decision of the single judge, which stopped the government from converting the house sites into flats, filed appeals. The 213 allottees to whom the single judge denied the said benefit on the ground of non-payment of the enhanced amount also filed appeals.
Senior counsel L. Ravichander, also appearing for some allottees, argued that the allottees were incapacitated from making payment by the virtue of refusal by the board to receive the enhanced amount and thus they cannot be penalised. He argued that the artificial classification among similarly situated allottees affected by the Single Judge was unsound in law.
Senior counsel D. Prakash Reddy, appearing for some of the allottees, unsuccessfully pointed out that the land vesting with the SHB could not have been converted into flats after the plots were allotted to individual members. The decision and decision-making process by the state government are vitiated and arbitrary. Prakash Reddy had also pointed out that the government decision was contrary to the recommendations of the Cabinet Sub-Committee.
Senior advocate Harender Pershad appearing for the government and the Housing Board pointed out that the decision was based on dwindling availability of land and need to satisfy other stakeholders.
After a detailed hearing of the matter, the bench speaking through Justice Shravan Kumar declared the impugned order of the government as illegal and directed the board to register the plots on receipt of the stated amount within a period of four months.
