IMPORTANT POINT
Interest has to be calculated from date of revised allotment-cum-intimation letter and not from date of initial allotment-cum-intimation letter.

Bhanwar Singh, President—Heard learned Counsel for both the parties at length and perused the entire record before us.

2. The core issue which requires our determination and which is the main bone of contention between the parties is as to whether the interest to be levied upon the complainant/allottee of the plot No.19 measuring 8190 sq. metres Greater Noida has to be reckoned with from the date of initial allotment-cum-intimation letter dated 16.3.1999 as pleaded by the appellant authority or it is to be calculated w.e.f. 16.9.1999 i.e. from the date of the revised allotment-cum-intimation letter as pleaded by the respondent/ complainant?

3. The facts which are not disputed would indicate that plot No.19 having an area of 8190 sq. metres was allotted to Bhagirath Sewa Sansthan for establishment of integrated Higher Secondary School at Greater Noida at the rate of Rs.625.00 per sq. metre. Out of this land, 4047 sq. metres land had to be given free of cost for play-ground and the total price of the land which was the subject matter of realisation, as the lease-rent and the premium amount was Rs.25,89,375.00. What is more important to note as admitted to both the parties, they are ready and willing to execute their part of performance in accordance with the allotment dated 16.9.1999. However, a difference of opinion arises out of this allotment letter of September 16, 1999. A careful reading of this letter would show that the Greater Noida insisted for treating the crucial date of allotment-cum-intimation letter as 16.3.1999 whereby a larger chunk of land measuring 8,190 sq. metres of land was allotted to the complainant with 4,047 sq. metres of the land to be allotted free of cost i.e. for playground.

4. Whereas the contention of the learned Counsel for the respondent/complainant is that the Greater Noida authority was not in a position to provide 6,000 sq. metres land free of cost at the site which was originally allotted to the complainant, the Development Authority having a converse version, has stated that the area of the allotted land was reduced on the request of the complainant. There is no letter on record which could have been sent on behalf of the Greater Noida thereby intimating to the complainant that the Authority for some reasons was not in a position to provide 12,000sq. metres of land at the original site with the provision for one acre land to be provided free of cost; nor any document such as minutes of the meeting held between the two have been brought on record to depict some light on the issue. However, learned Counsel for the Authority has relied upon a letter of November 27, 2000 whereby Sri Kusumkar Shukla, the Secretary of Bhagirath Sewa Sansthan has expressed his inability to take the first site for the purpose of running a school. A careful reading of this letter would reveal that the plot which had been allotted to the complainant vide allotment letter dated 16.3.1999 could not cater the need of the complainant. It has also been mentioned in this letter that the plot initially allotted to him was not available at the site for being provided to him. Then there were two requests of the complainant which were pressed into service one pertains to change of date of allotment dated 16.3.1999 to 16.9.1999 and the other relates to reduction of rate of interest from 18% to 15%. Whether this letter was replied or not by means of a written reply letter is not certain, as can be observed at this juncture. Insofar as the rate of interest is concerned perhaps there is no surviving issue at this time and, therefore, we need not to delve upon it.

5. The other request which was made by the complainant in the said letter and which eventually obliged him to file a complaint before the District Consumer Forum below related to the date of allotment.

6. The Greater Noida Authority, however, insisted throughout to stick to its original stand of treating March 16,1999 to be the initial date of allotment and it was o