HC directs DDA to refund faulty applicants' booking amount

New Delhi, Jan 21 (UNI) Delhi High Court has directed the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to refund the booking amount of applicants violating the eligibility clause of its housing scheme.

Terming the forefeiture of amounts of the applicants whose applications have been rejected by the DDA at the stage of scrutiny ''illegal'', Justice Gita Mittal ordered refunding of their booking amounts within six weeks of time.

As the applications were detected at the scrutiny stage and not after allotment, the applicants were entitled to get back their booking amount of Rs 1,50,000 each, the court said, adding. However, no costs or interest should be paid to them as they violated the eligibility terms as laid down by the DDA.'' Nine couples had approached the court seeking the refunding of their initial amount, as they violated the eligibility term of the DDA brochure and not the after allotment terms.

The petitioners were informed on April 10,2007 that their application forms were disqualified and the amounts deposited by them had been forefeited as they breached the conditions as stipulated in their brochure, which says, ''two members of the same family cannot apply for the flat in the same scheme''.

The lawyers of the petitioners contented that DDA had no such powers under the management of its regulations, 1968 or under the terms of clause 22 of brochure issued towards DDA housing scheme 2006.

Justice Mittal held that there was no dispute on the issue that the applicants violated Clause 2 (IV) or (V) of the brochure but the clause H of the other general rules and conditions prescribed in clause 23 of the brochure has clarified that in view any difficulty in checking eligibility of the applicant at the time of acceptance of the form, the registration was at the risk of the applicants and that they would not be entitled for flats, if it was detected at a later stage that they were ineligible for allotment under the scheme.

As per prescribed procedures, the eligible applicants were subjected to draw of lots and the allottee was there upon required to deposit the charges but in this case the forms of the applicants were rejected at the initial stage and not considered for the draw of lots, the court noted.

UNI SNG SYU RN2113