N K PARMAR Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) . In this group of petitions, it is prayed by the Government employees, the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation employees and the employees of the Accountant General, Gujarat, that the Government should be directed to sell them the tenements, which are allotted to them as employees for residential purpose during their service tenure. The dispute pertains to "F", "G", "K" and Meghaninagar Housing Colonies (which are situated in the area known as Asarwa Chamanpura) and few tenements constructed by S. T. Corporation at Nadiad, Baroda and other cities.

(2.) . It is the contention of the petitioners that "F", "G" and Meghaninager Housing Colonies were constructed by the Housing Board in the year 1959- 60 at the price of Rs. 3600.00 per tenement; on the bifurcation of the bilingual State of Bombay, the State of Gujarat was formed on 1/05/1960; for accommodating the Government employees the State of Gujarat took the Colonies "A", "B", "C", "D". "E", "F", "G". "H" and "L" from the Gujarat Housing Board. It is the say of the State Government that, to provide accommodation to the Government servants who were working in the State Government departments and who were transferred to the State of Gujarat, the aforesaid .Colonies were taken over on lease and accommodation was also provided in the Government owned quarters, flats and bungalows. The Government had also allotted certain quarters of "F" and "G" Colonies to the staff of the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation on certain conditions and the .administrative control for residential accommodation of these quarters 'vested with the State Government. It is also pointed out that by Resolution dated 17/03/1977 (Annexure "I" to the affidavit-in-reply) the State Government decided to purchase 1154 numbers of tenements from the Gujarat Housing Board situated at various places in Ahmedabad City as under : (1) "F" Colony, Shah Alam Roza 524 Nos. (2) "G" Colony, Rajpur Hirpur 414 Nos. (3) Asarwa Chamanpura (Meghaninagar Housing Colonies) 216 Nos. 1154 Nos. The preamble of the said Resolution provides that on formation of the new State of Gujarat on 1st May, 1960, the issue of providing residential accommodation to the Government servants allocated to the new State and posted to work either in Sachivalaya or to the offices of Heads of Departments set up at Ahmedabad cropped up. For this purpose, in addition to requisitioning private houses and undertaking programmes of constructing new quarters on priority basis, 1154 tenements of the Gujarat Housing Board constructed under the subsidised Industrial Housing Scheme were also hired for Government servants. Considering the need of accommodating the Government employees, it was thought proper not to release the said quarters to the Gujarat Housing Board. With regard to "K" Colony, it is an admitted fact that the Government had constructed it and it belongs to the Government.

(3.) . At the time of hearing of these matters, the learned Advocates for the petitioners vehemently contended that - (1) With regard to "H" and "L" Colonies, the State Government had decided to allot the tenements of the said Colonies in favour of Government employees or other persons who were residing in the said tenements, therefore, the Government should be directed to dispose of these tenements in favour of the petitioners; (2) "F", "G" and Meghaninagar Housing Colonies were constructed by the Housing Board under the scheme known as "Subsidised Industrial Housing Scheme" with 50% subsidy of the Central Government and the Central Government by its Circular dated 14/02/1979 has directed the State Government to transfer the tenements on ownership basis to their respective members/workers and, therefore also, the State Government should be directed to transfer these tenements in favour of the petitioners who were allotted the tenements for their residence; and (3) the State Government had no authority to direct the Gujarat-Housing Board to transfer the tenements in its favour and, therefore, the Resolution passed by the State Government in 1977 for purchase of the said Colonies is illegal.