DDA irregularities: No housing allotment till probe is over

Tuesday, 31 March 2009, 14:52 IST
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New Delhi: The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) Monday said it has frozen the allotments of flats till the police probe into the multi-million housing scam was completed. Submitting the internal inquiry report before Justice Hima Kohli of the Delhi High Court, the housing authority said it will now do physical verification of the applications. The court will hear the case July 13. The alleged irregularities in the allotment of over 5,000 flats by the DDA surfaced in December last year. At least eight people have been arrested and the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police is probing the fraud. It came to light after a man who was allotted a flat in the draw of lots complained to the police that he had neither applied for a DDA flat nor had a PAN card. Investigations have revealed that a group of people conspired to buy several flats in the names of those from reserved categories like the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes who were eligible for the flats but could not afford them. The conspirators' meant to sell off these flats later for huge profits. The Delhi High Court was hearing a petition by Rajesh Kumar, who works with the Indian Air Force and accused the DDA of illegally and arbitrarily allotting flats. Kumar has demanded that the last year's Dec 16 draw of lots should be cancelled. "The draw of lots made by the DDA is illegal, arbitrary and grossly against the public policy and there are sufficient proofs to show that the draw suffers from malpractices coupled with the irregular and irresponsible conduct of DDA," the petition said. He said many applications were filed using fake names and the authority had failed to verify these, leading to the allotment of flats to dubious applicants. The DDA allotted over 5,000 flats through a draw of lots in which 567,000 applications were considered. The flats cost between 700,000 to 7.7 million each and are located in areas like Dwarka, Rohini and Vasant Kunj.
Source: IANS
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