DELHI DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY Vs. GURCHARAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE mother of the respondent was the original owner of property bearing no. B-2/17, Janak Puri, New Delhi, purchased by her in an auction conducted by delhi Development Authority (for short DDA ). The prescribed user of the property is residential. The ground floor of the said property was let out by the respondent for the residence of the Principal of a school. There were some disputes between the respondent and the tenant as the tenanted premises were not vacated and the tenant was found running a school. The appellant issued show cause notice on 27. 12. 1995 followed by a final show cause notice dated 18. 3. 1996 asking the respondent to stop misuse. It is not necessary to go into further details in respect of this dispute but suffice to say that when the respondent applied for conversion of property into freehold, the application was not processed on account of misuse charges.

(2.) THE respondent filed Civil Writ Petition No. 3211/2001 which was disposed of on 8. 1. 2003. In terms of the said order the respondent agreed to pay misuse charges in respect of the ground floor portion and the period for which the misuse charges were held payable was 1. 4. 1993 to 31. 3. 1996. The appellant was directed to send a fresh demand of misuse charges in terms of the said order. This order has become final.

(3.) THE second round of litigation began by filing WP (C) No. 15897/2004, which has resulted in the impugned judgement dated 15. 12. 2005. A reading of the impugned order shows that the respondent, once again, sought to raise the issue of levy of misuse charges which was negated by the learned single Judge in view of earlier order passed on 8. 1. 2003. Apart from this, two other issues were raised by the respondent: (i) The permissible covered area is only the ground floor coverage excluding the coverage of the floors above and thus the misuse charges have been calculated incorrectly; (ii) the rebate admissible for such conversion having been increased from 25 per cent to 40 per cent, the excess charges paid were liable to be refunded.