Delhi high court grants Centre till July 25 to decide on AAP plea for party office
A request was made by the Directorate of Estates, ministry of housing affairs, seeking four more weeks for the Centre to decide on the issue
New Delhi
The Delhi high court on Tuesday granted the Centre time till July 25 to decide on a request by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for allotment of land for a party office in the national capital.
On Tuesday, the Directorate of Estates, ministry of housing affairs, requested for four more weeks, on the grounds that the Centre was occupied with allotting accommodations to the newly elected parliamentarians. The previous deadline of six weeks, issued by the high court on June 5, would elapse by Wednesday.
Senior advocate Rahul Mehra, representing the AAP, opposed the request made by the Directorate of Estates, saying that the issue needed to be decided soon as the Supreme Court granted the AAP only till August 10 to vacate the current office on the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg.
“Tomorrow is the last day when the order completes six weeks...You had five weeks to come to the court...If they don’t want to give, what is the reason? What is stopping them from giving a reasoned order?” he said during the hearing.
Alleging that the Centre wanted to leave the AAP without any remedy, Mehra said that the Centre also failed to submit to the Supreme Court that further extension may be needed to comply with the high court order.
After hearing the submissions, justice Sanjeev Narula refused to grant four weeks to the Centre and directed that the AAP’s request for land be decided upon by July 25.
The court was addressing a plea filed by the AAP, seeking directions to the Centre to allot a housing unit from the general pool for a party office on payment of licence fee, till they get a permanent set-up.
The plea asserted that Section 26 (iii) of the Compendium of the Allotment of Government Residences (General Pool in Delhi) Rules, 1963, allowed the president of a recognised political party to retain one residential accommodation, provided that no other allotment has been allotted to the official in any other capacity.
On March 4, the Supreme Court gave AAP till June 15 to vacate a building being used by the party as its political headquarters at Rouse Avenue, noting that the plot was required for expanding judicial infrastructure for Delhi’s district judiciary. A bench headed by the Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud observed that AAP has “no lawful right to continue on the land” after its allotment to the Delhi high court for upgrading the district judiciary’s infrastructure. The top court later extended the deadline till August 10 for AAP to vacate the office.