SC Asks AG To Submit Guidelines To Regulate Land Allotment To Housing Societies Across Nation

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Attorney General K K Venugopal to submit proposed guidelines to govern allotment of government land to housing societies, to which politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and sometimes judges are also members, across the country. A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli said that now the scope of the petition has been expanded, the plea may be listed after the AG submits guidelines, proposed by him, to govern the allotment of land to housing societies nationwide.

At the outset, the bench wanted to know as to how it can regulate and ask for a uniform policy on such kind of allotment across the country. “What is happening is this that plots are being distributed to politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and sometimes even to judges and all this is done to curry favours for particular entities,” Venugopal said. Therefore, the apex court decided to have some guidelines so that the governments across the country are bound by them, he said, adding that one chief minister allotted land to the driver.

“During the course of hearing, Mr C.S.Vaidyanathan, senior counsel (appearing for Telangana) submits that the state is not going to allot the land which is the subject matter of the application to anybody. Recording the statement made by the learned senior counsel, we see no reason to pass any specific interim order. “Attorney General submits that the guidelines in compliance of the order passed by this Court have been framed. We request the Attorney General to circulate the said guidelines to us. The parties are at liberty to make a mention for listing of the matter after four weeks,” the bench noted in its order. The matter pertained to ascertaining the “legality, propriety of policies” formulated by the states with regard to allotment of land for housing projects and explore the possibility of having a uniform policy with regard to the same which is applicable PAN-India.

The issue came up in an appeal filed by Andhra Pradesh, now pursued by successor Telangana government, against the 2010 verdict of the Hyderabad High Court setting aside various government orders on allotment of residential plots to housing societies. Prior to this, a plea was filed in 2008 in the high court challenging the alienation of land situated within the Greater Hyderabad Municipal corporation Limits to various societies comprising MLAs, MPs, IAS, IPS, IRS officers and others.

“The conclusion is irresistible and the impugned GOs (government orders) to the extent that they did not render ineligible the persons, who own a house or house site in their own name or in the name of their spouse or children for allotment of house sites by the respective societies of which they are members, cannot be sustained in law,” the high court had held in 2010. The state government had appealed against the verdict.

PTI Inputs