HC pulls up dda for woes faced by pak refugees

The Delhi High Court has pulled up officials of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for their “lackadaisical attitude” towards those refugees in the city who came from Pakistan during the Partition, forcing them to file numerous litigations in the courts.

The Delhi High Court has pulled up officials of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for their “lackadaisical attitude” towards those refugees in the city who came from Pakistan during the Partition, forcing them to file numerous litigations
in the courts.

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The Court allowed a plea for allotment for an alternative site under the scheme of resettlement of refugees to the family of one such refugee, Khairati Lal, who had migrated from Pakistan during Partition.

“The case highlights how a non-responsive bureaucracy can make a citizen run mad and how the courts can be burdened with unnecessary litigation,” observed a Bench headed by Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, while imposed a cost of Rs 5,500 against the DDA.

Lal's grandson Harish Kumar said his grandfather had occupied a land measuring 184 sq yard in Motia Khan and paid the damages for use of such land. After Lal’s death, Kumar started paying the damages to DDA. Soon after Emergency was lifted, the DDA, in a new policy in 1977, sought to resettle the refugees by providing alternative sites.

DDA allotted only 50 sq yards instead of 184 sq yards but when he raised objections, the DDA asked him to
give damage clearance certificates.