Case: City Indl.Devept. Th:Mng Director Vs. Platinum Entertainment


Decision:
1[ds]The High Court instead of looking into these aspects of the matter, completely ignored the same on the ground that in the show cause notice none of the grounds were made basis of the order of cancellation of allotment. In our considered opinion, the High Court while exercising power of judicial review is supposed to have gone into the question as to how the three plots were allotted in favour of one group of persons. The High Court has lost sight of the admitted fact that by entertaining private applications of the same person three different valuable plots have been allotted in different names. The High Court fell in error in holding that the allotment of plots of land to the same person but in the names of trust is alsoHigh Court ought to have seen the action of the then Board of Directors of CIDCO demonstrating that in the first meeting of the Board itself they cleared the special proposals without considering the individual merits. In the meeting, hardly any official members were present when the allotments were made to theand its agencies and instrumentalities cannot give largesse to any person at sweet will and whims of the political entities or officers of the State. However, decisions and action of the State must be founded on a sound, transparent and well defined policy which shall be made known to the public. The disposal of Government land by adopting a discriminatory and arbitrary method shall always be avoided and it should be done in a fair and equitable manner as the allotment on favoritism or nepotism influences the exercises of discretion. Even assuming that if the Rule or Regulation prescribes the mode of allotment by entertaining individual application or by tenders or competitive bidding, the Rule of Law requires publicity to be given before such allotment is made. CIDCO authorities should not adopt pick and choose method while allotting the Governmenttake serious note and express our anguish, the way the authorities of CIDCO showed undue favour to the respondents and managed to allot the Government land in favour of one person knowing fully well that the aforesaid proprietor of the Company, in different capacity and in dummy names, sought allotments of plots. The way CIDCO has been dealing with the Government property, it is high time, we observe, that notwithstanding Regulation 4, as contained in the Regulations, the appellant CIDCO may take all endeavour to make allotments of plots by open tender or competing bids and shall not take any decision for allotment of Government land at the instance of the Ministers and High Dignitaries for any purposesinto consideration the entire facts of the case and the law discussed hereinabove, we have no hesitation in holding that the CIDCO was justified in cancelling all the allotments made in favour of the respondents.