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2015 Supreme(P&H) 2215

IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA
HEMANT GUPTA, HARI PAL VERMA, JJ.
Mulakh Raj Dhamija and Others – Petitioners
Versus
State of Haryana and Others – Respondents
Civil Writ Petition No. 5075 of 2010
Decided On : 27-11-2015

Advocates Appeared:
For the Petitioners:Sushil Jain, Advocate.
For the Respondents:Deepak Girotra, Advocate, Rajesh Gaur, Additional Advocate General, Haryana, Kanwaljit Singh, Senior Advocate with Dheeraj Chawla, Advocate, N.C. Sahni, Advocate, Ashok Kumar Sehrawat, Advocate, Kulvir Narwal, Advocate, Rajeev Kawatra, Advocate, Dinesh Arora, Advocate, Puneet Bali, Senior Advocate with Ms. Monika Thakur, Advocate, Deepak Agnihotri, Advocate, Sandeep K. Sharma, Advocate, S.P. Chahar, Advocate, Kunal Mulwani, Advocate.

Arbitrary allotment without objective criteria and failure to sift out unjustified allotments led to the court setting aside all allotments made.

Headnote:

Allotment - Industrial Plots - Haryana State Industrial & Infrastructural Development Corporation Act, 2015 - [HSIIDC Act, 2015] - The court found that the allotment of plots was arbitrary and without any objective, transparent, and rational criteria. The Committee failed to discharge its function of sifting out tainted and unjustified allotments. The court set aside all allotments made and provided specific directions for the disposal of plots where construction had been partly or completely completed and where production had commenced.

Fact of the Case:

The court found the allotment of industrial plots to be arbitrary and without any objective criteria. The Committee failed to sift out tainted and unjustified allotments. The court set aside all allotments made and provided specific directions for the disposal of plots.

Finding of the Court:

The court found that the allotment process was arbitrary and lacked transparency. It also found that the Committee failed to discharge its function of sifting out tainted and unjustified allotments.

Issues: Arbitrary allotment process, lack of objective criteria, failure of the Committee to sift out unjustified allotments.

Ratio Decidendi: The court set aside all allotments made and provided specific directions for the disposal of plots where construction had been partly or completely completed and where production had commenced.

Final Decision: The court disposed of the writ petition by setting aside all allotments made and providing specific directions for the disposal of plots.

JUDGMENT :

HEMANT GUPTA, J.

1. This order be read in continuation of earlier order passed by this Court on 27.03.2015 whereby the process of allotment of plots was found to be arbitrary without framing any objective, transparent and rationale criteria. However, the question as to whether all allotments are tainted or unjustified or only some of them are beneficiary of the largesse was required to be examined by the Committee chosen from the list of Officers given by learned State Counsel.

2. Unfortunately, the Committee has failed to discharge the function assigned to it that the Committee will be able to sift out the tainted and unjustified allotments than the one which is bona fide and justified allotment. The Committee in its report dated 1.9.2015 has recorded as under :

"5. The record of the allotment reveals that no criteria was evolved by the Allotment Committee to appraise/allot marks on various indices to the applicants. During the course of the interviews, no marks were assigned to any of the applicants. Therefore, the committee is of the opinion that an objective criteria ought to have been in existence before these plots were allotted. In a subsequent development the present State Government (vide HSIIDC Office Order No. HSIIDC: Estate : 2015 :1051-1056 dated 28th May, 2015) so as to bring in transparency in the procedure of allotment of industrial plots/sheds in various Models Townships/Industrial Estates of HSIIDC has revised the existing allotment procedure/policy. This revised policy/procedure for allotment of industrial plots/sheds of HSIIDC is reproduced below :

xxx xxx xxx

13. The current status of the 222 allotted plots is given below:

Sr. No.

Status

Number of plots

1.

Plots where the project has been implemented with the commencement of production

122

2.

Plots where construction has been completed

75

3.

Plots where 50% construction has been completed

6

4.

Plots where 25% construction has been completed

9

5.

Plots lying vacant

10 (3 plots resumed on account of non payment/non construction, in 3 plots allotment stands cancelled as the allottees did not execute agreement with HSIIDC, in 2 plots implementation period available till 11.02.2016, and in the remaining 2 cases, resumption proceedings have been initiated)

xxx xxx xxx

16. In view of the fact that since in 197 plots, industrial production has either commenced or construction of the unit completed, the Committee solicits the guidance of the Hon'ble High Court to proceed further in the matter. The Hon'ble High Court in its order dated 27.03.2015 had observed that :-

"The said Committee shall prepare an objective, transparent and fair criteria to assess the suitability of each of the applicants for the plots on the basis of the documents filed along with their respective applications".

17. Subsequent to this, the present State Government in its endeavour to ensure transparency in the allotment of industrial plots in HSIIDC has revised its procedure/policy (vide Office Order No. HSIIDC; Estate : 2015: 1051- 1056 dated 28th May, 2015 of MD, HSIIDC) which is a transparent and objective policy to evaluate the eligibility/suitability of the applicants. Thus, the Committee is of the considered view that it may not be desirable to frame another set of criteria by it to evaluate the applications and, therefore, clarification of the Hon'ble High Court is solicited regarding the same."

3. The Committee has, thus, noticed that subsequently, the Haryana State Industrial & Infrastructural Development Corporation (for short ‘HSIIDC’) has framed a policy/procedure for allotment of industrial plots/sheds on 28.05.2015 but submitted report so as to seek clarification from this Court that it may not b







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