Smt. Alaka Gupta And Others vs State Of Odisha And Others
2023 Latest Caselaw 1330 Ori

                     IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK

                                 W.P.(C) No.12979 of 2014
            Smt. Alaka Gupta and others           ....                Petitioners
                                                      Mr. P. K. Rath, Advocate
                                          -versus-
            State of Odisha and others                .... Opposite Parties
                                          Mr. Ishwar Mohanty, ASC for State
                        CORAM:
                        THE CHIEF JUSTICE
                        JUSTICE M.S. RAMAN
                                          ORDER

08.02.2023 Order No.

14. 1. The challenge in the present petition is to a demand notice dated 5th May, 2014 issued by the General Administrative (GA) Department, Government of Odisha, requiring the Petitioners to deposit Rs.42,62,810/- towards differential land premium @ Rs.1.1 Crores per acre and Infrastructure Department (ID) cost at the revised rate of Rs.2.5 Crores per acre within sixty days along with a fresh lease deed for execution. The Petitioners also question the order dated 19th November, 2013 of the GA Department, in terms of which the Policy for regularizing of the allotment was issued. The third prayer is for a mandamus to the GA Department to execute the lease deed in respect of the plot No.27(C) in Drawing No.8/360 in Mouza-Ghatikia (hereafter 'the plot in question') in terms of the earlier GA Department's order dated 25th April, 1992.

2. While directing notice to issue in the present petition on 12th August 2014, the Court stayed the operation of the demand. That interim order has continued since.

3. There are three Petitioners. While Petitioner No.1 is the wife of late Sri Arjun Gupta, Petitioners 2 and 3 are their daughter and son respectively. All of them are residents of Kolkata.

4. The background facts are that the plot in question was originally allotted in favour of late Sri Arjun Gupta as a result of lottery drawn in June, 1991. The allotment was done by a GA Department's order dated 25th April, 1992 requiring the allottee to deposit the land premium of Rs.19,753/- after deduction of initial deposit amount of Rs.10,000/- and further a sum of Rs.55,786/-, which was to be deposited in three consecutive annual and equal installments after the execution of the lease deed. It is stated that on 13th July, 1992 the entire land premium amount of Rs.19,753/- was paid. On 2nd July 1993, the GA Department acknowledged receipt of the land premium and forwarded the form of lease deed in triplicate along with an affidavit for the purposes of execution.

5. It appears that on 10th April, 1991 itself, Sri Arjun Gupta passed away in Kolkata due to cardiac arrest and this information was not brought to the notice of the GA Department till 13th August, 1993 when his wife - Petitioner No.1 - wrote a letter to the Director of Estate in the GA Department seeking permission to execute the lease deed on behalf of Sri Arjun Gupta in her capacity as his legal heir. With the said letter, she enclosed the death certificate of Sri Arjun Gupta. After waiting for more than a year, on 11th November 1994, she again wrote another letter reiterating her request.

6. It appears that for nearly six years thereafter nothing happened. On 3rd June 2000, the Court at Alipore issued a succession certificate in favour of Petitioner No.1.

7. On 4th April 2002, the GA Department wrote to the Petitioner No.1 asking her to submit a copy of the death certificate and legal heir certificate duly attested and to come along with the original certificate for verification. According to the Petitioners, this was done on 12th April, 2002. The Land Officer in GA Department is stated to have written to Petitioner No.1 on 9th November, 2005 asking her to submit a legal heir certificate issued by the Tahasildar, Bhubaneswar and a succession certificate in the Civil Court, Bhubaneswar.

8. Again for three more years, nothing appears to have happened. Pursuant to an application under the RTI Act, the GA Department on 4th October, 2008 furnished the following information to the Petitioners:

"(i) That the death certificate and succession certificate of the lessee Late Arjun Gupta submitted by Mrs. Alka Gupta vide her letter dtd. 11.11.94 and 12.04.2002 have been received by G.A. Department and processed accordingly.

(ii) As the succession certificate submitted by Alka Gupta does not contain anything about the property at Ghatikia and also name of the children she was also asked to submit attested copy of legal heir certificate issued by Tahasildar of succession certificate from the civil court for consideration of her application vide G.A. Department Letter No. 14211CA dtd. 09.11.2015.

(iii) On receipt of the aforesaid document the further necessary steps in the matter will be taken."

9. In the meanwhile, the Petitioners filed W.P.(C) No.299 of 2010 in this Court for a direction to the GA Department to allow the Petitioners to execute the lease deed in their capacity as legal heirs of the original allottee. By the judgment dated 3rd September 2013, a Division Bench of this Court dismissed the writ petition. It was

noted by the Court that despite the Additional Land Officer having written to Petitioner No.1 on 9th November, 2005 asking her to supply documents necessary for execution of the lease deed, she did not respond to the said letter. Even after receipt of information under the RTI Act by which she knew that the certificates submitted by her did not disclose the material facts, she did not take steps. The Division Bench noted that the Petitioners were residing in West Bengal for the last 23 years and without complying with the terms and conditions of the allotment order, they had approached this Court at a belated stage. Accordingly, this Court was not inclined to entertain the writ petition and dismissed it.

10. After the dismissal of the writ petition, the Petitioner received another letter from the GA Department on 3rd May, 2014 informing them that the plot allotted had been mutated in their names. Within two days thereafter a demand notice was issued to the Petitioners asking them to pay the land premium and ID cost. Thereafter, the present writ petition was filed in which an interim order was passed by this Court.

11. This Court has heard the submission of Mr. P. K. Rath, learned counsel appearing for the Petitioners and Mr. Ishwar Mohanty, learned Additional Standing Counsel (ASC) for the GA Department-State.

12. Mr. Rath contended that since the entire land premium had been paid way back in 1992, the condition of allotment had been satisfied and, therefore, the Petitioners were justified in insisting upon execution of the lease deed in their favour on the basis of the original terms and conditions of the lease. In other words, according

to him, the GA Department was not justified in raising a fresh demand by the impugned letter dated 5th May, 2014.

13. As far as the above submissions are concerned, it was rightly pointed out by Mr. Mohanty, learned ASC that this very prayer viz., that a mandamus should be issued to the GA Department to execute the lease deed in favour of the Petitioners, was rejected by this Court by its order dated 3rd September, 2013 while dismissing W.P.(C) No.299 of 2010 filed by these very Petitioners. That order became final since it was not further challenged by the Petitioners.

14. Indeed the Court finds that it is no longer open, after the above order of this Court, to the Petitioners to argue that they are entitled to have the lease deed executed in their favour in respect of the plot in question on the same terms as the original allotment letter.

15. The added complication is that as per the extant policy, as pointed out by Mr. Mohanty, it was essential for the allottees to be permanent residents of Odisha. That apart, Clause (vi) of the Guidelines dated 19th November, 2013 reads as under:

"For cases, where allotment orders have been issued, full premium has been paid within 120 days from the date of issue of allotment order, lease deed formats have been supplied for execution but the allottees have expired without executing lease deed and the legal heirs now want to execute lease deed, the legal heirs/successors shall be allowed to execute lease deed by the cutoff date (i.e. 31.03.2014) on deposit of differential premium at prevailing rate and revised ID cost @Rs.2.5 crore per acre in one installment within 90 days from the date of intimation, failing which the allotment shall stand automatically cancelled".

16. The plot in question is in Kalinga Nagar and the land premium was revised in May, 2014 at par with the Bench Mark valuation

keeping in view the current land value. As of date, the land value would be several-fold higher.

17. The Court finds that despite several opportunities to submit the complete documentation and execute the lease deed, the Petitioners actually did not come forward to do so. They also declined to pay the demand in terms of the revised policy and instead chose to challenge it in this Court. There can be no justification for an allottee to continue to hold on to a plot allotted more than three decades ago at a prime location in Bhubaneswar without fulfilling the conditions of allotment in terms of the revised policy.

18. For the aforementioned reasons, the Court finds no grounds are made out for granting any of the reliefs prayed for in the present petition. The interim order passed earlier stands vacated. The petition is accordingly dismissed, but in the circumstances, with no order as to costs.

(Dr. S. Muralidhar) Chief Justice

(M.S.Raman) Judge

M. Panda