DDA pulled up over illegal land deal

A city court has pulled up the DDA chairman and Delhi Chief Secretary, and asked them to probe the alleged inaction of officials regarding the “illegal” sale of a plot by an allottee.

A city court has pulled up the DDA chairman and Delhi Chief Secretary, and asked them to probe the alleged inaction of officials regarding the “illegal” sale of a plot by an allottee.

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Seeking a detailed probe into the illegal land deal, additional district judge Kamini Lau said: “I hereby direct the copy of this court order be placed before the chairman DDA and Chief Secretary, NCT Government, for information and necessary action under intimation to the court.”

The court disposed of two petitions filed by Dinesh Pratap Singh, a resident of Kerala, who had purchased the 200 square-metre plot from allottee Ram Pat in 1999, seeking its possession and an injunction order against the seller.

The court restrained the litigants from further selling the property and asked the DDA to take punitive actions against the allottee for its illegal sale in violation of the lease deed.

Ram Pat, the first allottee in 1991, had sold the property first to Singh in 1999 and then transferred it to M/s Trishala Agencies Pvt Ltd, which in turn gave it to Puja, a resident of Bahadurgarh in Haryana.

The court noted that the role of sub-registrar, who registered sale of the plot twice by overlooking the illegality. “It is unfortunate that the sub-registrar (Pitampura) who was under a legal obligation to conduct an inquiry with regard to the documents... appears to have mechanically registered the documents without any application of mind,” the judge said.

It also noted that the registrar even ignored the terms of the lease deed prohibiting sale of the plot within 10 years of the allotment and the fact there was no endorsement on behalf of the DDA for such transaction.