The discretionary nature of the High Court's jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution and the principle of delay and laches.

JUDGMENT :

The present writ petition has been filed for issuance of direction upon the respondents to hand over the vacant physical possession of MIG House No. R-47, situated at Hirapur, Dhanbad (hereinafter referred as "the said house") to the petitioner which was allotted in her favour, but has not been handed over to her as yet. Further prayer has been made for issuance of direction upon the respondents to identify the persons who are responsible for not handing over vacant physical possession of the said house to the petitioner and to appropriately punish them. The petitioner has also prayed for directing the respondents to pay interest on the amount paid by her from the date of deposit of the same till the date of actual handing over of possession of the said house.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner was allotted the said house through draw of lots held by the erstwhile Bihar State Housing Board on 05.12.1994 which was communicated to her on 06.12.1994 by its Estate Manager. Thereafter, a formal allotment letter was issued to her vide memo No. 99 dated 13.01.1995 intimating the tentative value of the said house as Rs.1,65,690/-. It was mentioned in the said letter that the petitioner had to deposit 30% amount of the tentative value i.e. Rs.49,707/- before executing the agreement and the rest amount of Rs.1,15,983/- was to be paid in 120 Equal Monthly Instalments (EMIs). Since the petitioner had deposited Rs.6,700/- along with her application form, she was to deposit Rs.43,207/- before executing the agreement. The respondent No.2 entered into a hire purchase agreement with the petitioner on 20.07.1996 after depositing Rs.43,207/- on 09.04.1996 by way of Bank Draft. Thereafter, the Executive Engineer, Bihar State Housing Board, Dhanbad Division issued a common letter addressing the concerned Assistant Engineer and the Junior Engineer, Bihar State Housing Board, Dhanbad Division, Dhanbad on 24.09.1996 with a copy to the petitioner directing them to ensure handing over physical and legal possession of the said house to the petitioner by taking signature of the allottee as well as of the officer handing over the possession of the said house in the register being maintained in the office of the said authority. The said direction was never followed and no effort was made to ensure as to whether the petitioner had put her signature in the register showing handing over of possession of the said house.

3. After executing the agreement, the petitioner kept on depositing the EMI from time to time and she approached the respondent authorities on several occasions requesting handing over the physical possession of the said house to her, however, they kept on deferring the same on one pretext or the other. Finally, in the month of February, 2006, the petitioner herself went to visit the said house where she came to know that the premises allotted to her was being illegally occupied by some other person. Accordingly, she brought this fact to the notice of the respondent No.2 vide her representation dated 08.02.2006 sent through registered post on 09.02.2006 followed by repeated representations to various authorities, but all went in vain.

4. The petitioner also made an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 seeking information regarding handing over of possession of the said house to some other person which was replied by the respondent No.2 vide memo No. 184 dated 09.03.2010 informing that as per the records, the petitioner had sold the said house to the respondent No.4 by executing a power of attorney on 29.05.1998. Finding no way, the petitioner instituted a criminal complaint being C.P. Case No. 1986 of 2009 in the Court of the Judicial Magistrate, 1st Class, Dhanbad against the respondent No.4 and her husband, namely, Shyam Pd. Singh and at the same time, she also filed a writ petition being W.P.(C) No. 3763 of 2009 before this Court for directing the officers of the Jharkhand State Housing B