DELHI DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY Vs. SKIPPER CONSTRUCTION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By Order dated November 29, 1994, a Bench of this Court (P.B.Sawant, S. Mohan, JJ and one of us, B. P. Jeevan Reddy, J.) requested Mr. Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy, former Judge of this Court "to investigate into the conduct of the officials of the D. D. A. including its ex-officio Chairman at the relevant time, in handing over the possession of the suit-land in M/s. Skipper Construction Pvt. Ltd. before receiving the auction amount in full and also in conniving at the construction thereon as well as at the advertisements given by it for booking the premises in the building in question." The learned Judge was also asked to "look into the legality and propriety of the order dt. 4-10-1988 passed by the then ex-officio Chairman of the .D.D.A. and the directions given by the Central Government under Section 41 of the Delhi Development Authority Act. "The context in which the said Order was made is explained in the judgment dated January 25, 1995* rendered by the said Bench. Pursuant to the said request, Mr. Justice Chinnappa Reddy held an enquiry and has submitted his report dated July 7, 1995. After receipt of the report, notice was given to the parties before us to assist us in the matter of passing appropriate orders on the basis of the said report. In particular, we requested Sri Raju Ramchandran, Advocate, to assist us in formulating the appropriate directions in the matter. Copies of the report were made available to all the learned counsel concerned herein. We heard them on November 17, 1995.

(2.) Paragraph 59 of the Report contains a summary of the conclusion arrived at by the learned Judge. So far as the period January, 1981 to March, 1982 is concerned, the learned Judge found Sri S. C. Dikshit, Director (C. L.) and Sri V. S. Ailawadi, Vice-Chairman, responsible for several irregularities. The learned Judge stated that both of them sacrificed the interest of D.D.A. and went on recommending and granting extensions for which there was absolutely no justification. The learned Judge also found that such repeated extensions were in violation of the terms and conditions of auction and unauthorised by any statutory power or resolution of the D.D.A. So far as the period March, 1982 to May, 1982 is concerned, the learned Judge found that Sri. K. S. Baidwan, Secretary to the Lt. Governor, Sri V. S. Ailawadi, Vice-Chairman and Sri Virendra Nath, Commissioner colluded together and stated the implementation of the order of the Lt. Governor Sri S. L. Khurana directing cancellation of the bid and thereby facilitated M/s. Skipper Construction Company to obtain an order of stay from the Civil Court. The learned Judge further found that though the D.D.A. did adopt a resolution as far back as May 14, 1984 accepting the recommendations of the Committee (appointed by it) devising a scheme for recovering the balance amount due from Skipper in instalments in view of the subsequent developments, Sri R. S. Sethi, Commissioner (Lands) designedly delayed the execution of the agreement thereby enabling skipper to dupe the innocent members of the public by selling the same space in the proposed building to more than one person. The learned Judge also found that Sri Prem Kumar, Vice-Chairman, was a silent accessory to the role played by Sri Sethi. The learned Judge held that the process of recovery of the balance bid amount was stalled in the first instance by repeated extensions granted by Sri Ailawadi and Sri Dikshit and next by the actions of S/Sri Ailawadi, Baidwan and Virender Nath which facilitated Skipper to obtain stay from the Court. The learned Judge recorded further that the process of recovery was stalled finally "by the turn about taken by Sri. H. L. Kapur, Lt. Governor and Sri Om Kumar, Vice-Chairman who twisted the issue by linking the question of payment with and subjecting the same to the sanctioning of the building plans by the order embodied in the letter dated October 14, 1988". The learned Judge characterised the action of Sri H. L. Kapur and Sri Om Kumar as unjustified, uncalled for and in violation of the original terms and conditions of auction as well as the stipulations contained in the agreement, licence deed and the bank guarantee. The said action was found to be detrimental to the interests of the D.D.A.

(3.) Though not mentioned in the summary, we find that the learned Judge has also reported against Sri K. S. Bains, Vice-Chairman in the body of the Report. He was found him responsible for the failure to encash the bank guarantee furnished by Skipper immediately, at least in regard to the payment of third and fourth instalments.