AMAR VIVEK Vs. UNION OF INDIA AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order shall dispose of writ petition Nos.15560, 15535, 15563, 15565, 15552, 15652 & 15545 of 2007. The facts are being taken from CWP No. 15560 of 2007 as common question of law is involved in these writ petitions.

(2.) The petitioners in these petitions have asked for discretionary allotment of dwelling unit in a special categories like social welfare at the national level or are as sports persons etc. An advertisement was issued in the news papers on 30.7.2005 for allotment of Category II house under Special Housing Scheme, by way of discretionary allotment. The grievance of the petitioners primarily is that they were eligible for this preferential allotment of dwelling units as per the regulations framed by the Union Territory, and for which they were considered eligible, but have now been held ineligible by changing the criteria, which would not be fair and just approach.

(3.) Special Housing Scheme was advertised in the newspapers and the applications for allotment under Regulation of Chandigarh Housing Board (Allotment, Management and sale of tenements) Regulations, 1979, were invited for allotment of houses to specialized categories of War widows, terrorist victims, Gallantry awardees and those working in field of social service, sports, and literature etc. at the national level. Number of applications were received by the last date i.e. 31.8.2005 along with earnest money of Rs. 2.00 lacs. The petitioner in this case claiming himself to be working in the field of social service, had submitted an application for allotment of the dwelling unit. The petitioner claims that he was held eligible, but still was not allotted the dwelling units by changing the criteria, which would be unfair. Grievance in this regard is that all of a sudden, through an executive fiat, a new criteria was proposed, somewhere in December, 2006 and without affording any opportunity of hearing to the petitioner the criteria itself was changed to restrict the allotments only to those persons who were recipient of Bharat Ratana or Padam Shree series of awards. The petitioner would plead that this is contrary to Regulation 26 and also contrary to the terms of the advertisement and brochure. The amount of Rs. 2.00 lacs deposited by the petitioner was, thus, refunded after 2 years by holding him ineligible. The petitioner has filed this writ petition to make a claim for allotment in terms of the then existing Regulation and has impliedly challenged the change introduced in the year 2006, which is termed as unfair and arbitrary.