PREM KUMARI Vs. U T ADMINISTRATION CHANDIGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE deletion of daughters-in-law, from the list of relations eligible for out of turn allotment of government residential accommodation upon the retirement of the government servant, who had been allotted such accommodation, is the point in issue in this bunch of writ petitions remitted by the Supreme Court for consideration of this matter.

(2.) IT will be recalled, as mentioned in the judgment of the Division Bench in Chandigarh Administration v. Sham Singh, AIR 1993 Punj and Har 193, that it was by the order of the Chief Commissioner, Chandigarh of April 15, 1974 that the specified relations of a retiring government servant were for the first time rendered eligible for priority in allotment of government residential accommodation on their fulfilling the conditions prescribed therein. Daughters-in-law did not figure in the list of such specified relations. They came to be included much later, by the instructions of June 6, 1988, only to be excluded soon thereafter by the instructions currently in force of February 13, 1989 which came into effect from Febraury 28, 1989. The challenge here is to this exclusion of daughters-in-law.

(3.) IN dealing with this matter, it must be appreciated, as observed in Sham Singh's case (AIR 1993 Punj and Har 193) (supra) "that there is no vested right in a government servant for allotment of government residential accommodation, such allotment not being part of their conditions of service. It is merely a privilege extended to them in terms of the relevant rules or instructions issued in this behalf. This being so, if the government was competent to grant, it is equally empowered to modify or even cancel such privilege, "further, as is rightly the stand of the Chandigarh Administration, the daughter-in-law has to be looked upon as the dependent of her husband and not her father-in-law. What is more, even under the Central Government Policy, daughters-in-law are not included amongst the eligible category for out of turn allotment of government residential accommodation. An aspect of material significance, in this context, is the fact, as stated at the Bar, that the waiting period for allotment of government residential accommodation to the general category is over 15 years. Such being the situation, it would neither be right nor fair to enlarge this privileged group entitled to out of turn allotment.