Chandigarh man wins 30-year battle to get ‘resumed’ tag removed from house

“Due to negligence on part of the Estate Office, the appellant should not have suffered when they were not at fault and for want of clarification on the part of the Estate Office, this matter has been lingering on for past many years,” observed Chandigarh chief administrator Vijay Namdeorao Zade, while directing the office to consider the property “restored” and correct its details on its website

A Sector-38 resident’s three-decade back-and-forth struggle to get his property’s resumption cancelled has finally ended, with the UT chief administrator coming to his aid.

The Chandigarh chief administrator has further directed the estate officer to fix the responsibility of the erring officials, who were responsible for the lapse, and take appropriate action against them within three months. (Getty Images)

“Due to negligence on part of the Estate Office, the appellant should not have suffered when they were not at fault and for want of clarification on the part of the Estate Office, this matter has been lingering on for past many years,” observed chief administrator Vijay Namdeorao Zade, while directing the office to consider the property “restored” and correct its details on its website.

The chief administrator further directed the estate officer to fix the responsibility of the erring officials, who were responsible for the lapse, and take appropriate action against them within three months.

The order came on the appeal of Amrit Pal Singh Oberoi, whose house in Sector 38 was resumed on June 2, 1989, on account of building violations.

His late father, Ranbir Singh Oberoi, had filed an appeal before the then chief administrator, who following a hearing on October 30, 1992, had restored the site. But the order of restoration was not available on record.

Vikas Jain, counsel for the appellant, stated Ranbir filed another appeal against the resumption order, but the chief administrator dismissed it as infructuous on the statement of the law officer and SDO (Building) that the site had already been restored in favour of the owner.

However, the Estate Office website was still reflecting the property as “resumed on May 16, 2007”, even though no record of resumption order was available on record.

A three-member committee, comprising estate officers, then opined that the site has been restored, and recommended that the official website be updated accordingly.

After Ranbir’s death on April 16, 1993, Amrit Pal applied for transfer of the house in his name, when the section officer asked him to furnish the restoration order from October 1992, though the order was not available on record.

In another letter, dated July 27, 2023, Pal was asked to furnish the restoration order passed by the competent authority in respect of the house.

Before the chief administrator, the counsel for the Estate Office contended that no restoration order dated October 30, 1992, had been passed by the then chief administrator. Thus, the Estate Office had rightly issued a letter in July 2023.

The counsel for the Estate Office also intimated that this controversy emerged due to wrong statements by the law officer as well as the officials of the Estate Office.

In Pal’s appeal, it was submitted that Estate Office officials misinterpreted the order, dated December 22, 1993, and treated the site as resumed by misinterpretation.

Accepting Pal’s appeal, the chief administrator set aside the impugned orders from June 1989 and July 2023, with directions to the Estate Office to correct the website by considering the site as restored.