DDA's controversial draw of flats now before court

Amid allegations of irregularities in the DDA's draw of lots for allotment of flatsl, an unsuccessful applicant today approached the Delhi HC seeking cancellation of the draw.

Amid allegations of irregularities in the Delhi Development Authority's (DDA) draw of lots for allotment of flats in the capital, an unsuccessful applicant on Tuesday approached the Delhi High Court seeking cancellation of the draw.

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Rajesh Kumar, who works with the air force, filed a petition in the court that the DDA had illegally and arbitrarily allotted the flats and the draw should be cancelled.

"The draw of lots made by the DDA is illegal, arbitrary and grossly against the public policy and there are sufficient proofs to show that the draw suffers from malpractices coupled with the irregular and irresponsible conduct of DDA," Kumar said in his petition.

He said many applications were filed using fake names and the authority has failed to verify these, leading to the allotment of flats to dubious applicants.

"The irresponsible conduct of the DDA in not verifying the details of the applicants and then not rejecting the applications suffering from misrepresentation and suppression of facts has been highly prejudicial to genuine applicants," he said.

Referring to various media reports, Kumar said three people, with the same mobile phone number, were allotted flats and people belonging to a particular community from Rajasthan were alloted most of the flats reserved for Scheduled Tribes and Castes.

DDA allotted over 5,000 flats on December 6 through a draw of lots in which 567,000 applications were considered.

The flats' cost ranges between Rs 700,000 to Rs 7.7 million and the houses are located in areas like Dwarka, Rohini and Vasant Kunj.

Delhi Lieutenant Governor Tejinder Khanna, who is chairman of the DDA, has already ordered an enquiry by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police.