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Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 17
Less than two months after the Punjab and Haryana High Court took a serious view of the wait in the implementation of the self-financing housing scheme for UT employees, the Centre today submitted that the final note on the proposal to allot 61.5 acres of government land to the Chandigarh Housing Board for the purpose had been sent to the Cabinet Secretariat for placing before the Cabinet at an early date for its decision.
The land is for construction of apartments for 3,930 allottees under the UT scheme. Assistant Solicitor-General of India Chetan Mittal submitted that the final note for the Cabinet was duly approved by the “competent authority”. A letter, dated December 6, whereby the Cabinet note was forwarded to the Cabinet Secretariat, was also placed before the Bench of Justice Mahesh Grover and Justice Lalit Batra.
The assertions came in response to directions earlier issued by the Bench to the Union of India to make its stand clear on the proposal sent by the Administration for allocation of land to the housing board. The development took place nearly a decade after the scheme was launched for Chandigarh Administration employees on a petition filed by Phool Kumar Saini and other petitioners against the CHB and another respondent.
Mittal, on a previous date of hearing, had informed the Bench that the Chandigarh Administration had sent requisite information to the authorities concerned, whereupon the matter was examined by the Government of India before being put up before the “competent authority”. During the course of examination, some additional information was sought from the Cabinet Secretariat, which would also be made available at the earliest.
The petitioners were seeking directions to the CHB and another respondent to implement the Self- Financing Housing Scheme-2008 on a leasehold basis for 99 years for Chandigarh Administration employees.
The court was told that the housing scheme for the employees was launched in February 2008 by the UT. The draw of lots was held on November 4, 2010, and approximately 3,950 employees were successful. However, nothing was apparently done by the CHB. Even acceptance-cum-demand letters were not issued to the successful applicants and “the bureaucrats at high level were sleeping over the matter”.
The petitioners had added that the CHB was apparently more interested in providing houses to encroachers. They were getting houses and tenements free of cost as “in all this, the CHB gets an opportunity to do bungling”.
On the other hand, the successful applicants like the petitioners having a legitimate right to get a house by making payment as prescribed in the brochure were “left in the doldrums”. The petitioners claimed they were also being “prejudiced severely”.
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