Court Directed DDA to take necessary changes on entire allotment system

Bangalore : Even as the Delhi Development Authority mega housing 2014 applicants keenly await the draw of lots till date, a Delhi court has expressed apprehension over how the entire system of allotment of flats is abused by some agency officials and the way “property dealers/ allottees have access in the DDA headquarters at their whims and fancies” to get the manipulation done.

Mendiratta, a Special CBI Judge Anoop Kumar said that “It is regrettable that the entire system of allotment of flats has been exploited by some of the property dealers and allottees and the entire allotment process obliges a deeper probe to make sure that benefit of distribution achieves the genuine applicants”.

ASJ Mendiratta expressed his apprehension while deciding a case of scam of a housing scheme of the DDA in 1996 for allotment of flats under the Self Financing Scheme where the possession letters of 12 Kondli Gharoli DDA flats had been given to allottees on forged bank Challans, without the actual payment being made inflicting a loss of 1, 06, 46,063 to the DDA.

By treating the case as a tip of an iceberg, to avoid the repetition of earlier scam, the court directed that “to ensure proper cross checking and authentication of Challans submitted for payment of the cost of the flats at the level of AO/AAO, the necessary administrative guidelines be issued by the DDA Vice Chairman.

In his 364 page order ASJ Mendiratta said “Vice-Chairman, DDA, is accordingly directed to take indispensable action in the matter and action taken report be placed before this court within three months”.The court also directed the DDA, Vice Chairman to conduct a special review for SFS Scheme-1996 by an independent agency to proscribe any more cases of fraud.

In the instant case, the court pronounced four and five years imprisonment for Raju Agarwal, a property dealer and Gurdas, an Upper Division Clerk (Dealing assistant-SFS, Housing accounts in DDA) respectively. On the other hand, the court released S.K. Kaushik (Assistant Accounts Officer), V.P. Anand (Accounts officer, SFS-DDA), and Gurnam Chand (Assistant SFS Housing, DDA) because the CBI failed to prove their roles.

But, the Vice Chairman has been intended to perform departmental inquiry against those acquitted for the heedlessness on their part. The CBI’s case was that under the SFS scheme; in 1996, for the allotment of flats the DDA requested applications from the general public from August 8 to August 20. From the applicants of housing scheme, DDA received a deposit of Rs 50,000 at the initial stage and the draw of lots for allotting the flats in Kondli Gharoli was performed on December 31, 1996.

Further, the CBI stated that Gurnam Chand, Assistnat of SFS Housing was the custodian of the files of SFS flats. In 1997, through agents/directly Raju Agarwal possessed allotment papers from successful allottees as they were not in a position to make the payment completely.The indicted fabricated bank challans showing the cost of flats have been deposited. On the basis of forged documents, possession letters of 12 flats were issued to him.

The fraud became visible, when few buyers found that the original allottees had not made payment towards the flat. They also asked the property dealers to pay back the money and filed complaints against them.

The court was of the view that the way in which some of the allottees of DDA (SFS Scheme-1996) had applied for registration and allotment of flats brings out serious irregularities adopted by applicants to seek allotment and earn profits out of the allotments as the applications had been financed through property dealers/financiers and the applicants neither had the capability to pay for the allotted flats nor intended to use the same for personal use.

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