Civil Writ Petition No.17457 of 1991 : 1 : IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH DATE OF DECISION: JULY 15, 2011 Parveen Kumar Goyal .....Petitioner VERSUS State of Haryana & others ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? PRESENT: Mr.S.K.Jain, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Harish Rathee, Sr.DAG, Haryana, for the State. Mr.Raman Gaur, Advocate, for respondent Nos.2 & 3. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. The petitioner seeks benefit of largesse extended to him regarding allotment of discretionary quota plot at Jind. The allotment ultimately did not materalise necessitating the petitioner to approach this court through the present writ petition to seek direction to the respondents to issue this allotment of plot and hand over possession thereof to him. Showering benevolence without any justification, the petitioner in late eighties was shown this undue and unfair favour. At this belated stage it would be highly unfair, inequitable and Civil Writ Petition No.17457 of 1991 : 2 : unreasonable to put a judicial stamp on it. The petitioner seeks extension of this benefit without disclosing any justifiable cause as to why, at first place, this benefit was given to him. Merely because he did not possess any residential plot at Jind would be too irrelevant a reason to carve out exception and to allot plot to the petitioner out of discretionary quota. There are persons, uncountable in number, who would be without a plot in urban estate. Would that then be a justifiable reason to extend this discretionary allotment in favour of the petitioner?. There is no reason to hold or justify the exercise of this discretion. The facts, in brief, are that the petitioner claims to have been allotted a residential plot at Jind out of discretionary quota. As per the petitioner, his application was duly considered by the State and it was decided to allot a residential plot to him measuring 1 kanal in Urban Estate Residence at Jind. In this regard, the petitioner relies upon a communication dated 18.5.1987. This, in fact, cannot be termed as allotment letter and not even an offer of allotment. What all this letter conveys is that Government of Haryana had decided to allot a residential plot measuring 1 kanal at Jind subject to the condition that the petitioner did not have any other plot or house on his own name or in the name of his spouse or any other family members, dependent upon him, and had not been allotted any plot at any time in any Urban Estate out of Haryana Government discretionary quota. The petitioner, who was asked to furnish a certificate in terms of this communication to get an allotment is misreading this communication to call it an allotment letter. The petitioner, otherwise, has himself disclosed that while Civil Writ Petition No.17457 of 1991 : 3 : respondent No.2 was in the process of implementing the decision, the general elections were held and the Government in the State changed w.e.f. 1.7.1987. The changed Government took decision to cancel all the plots which had obviously been extended as largesse to large number of people by the outgoing Chief Minister while exercising his discretion. In the present day scenario, such a move would certainly be a questionable one. The allotment letter, therefore, did not follow. The decision to cancel all such allotments was passed by the new Government within 8 days of resuming power. The grievance of the petitioner is that this large scale cancellation, just by a stroke of pen was without application of mind. Such cancellation was then challenged before this court. This court had conditionally upheld the power to allot discretionary quota plot in case reported as S.R.Dass Versus State of Haryana , 1988(1) P.L.R. 430. The petitioner thereafter statedly had approached the respondents to issue allotment letter. His request was not entertained. The petitioner represented which did not get any reply. The petitioner apparently had kept quiet and made a move only when he came across a news item appearing in Daily Tribune on 3.1.1991 disclosing revival of the discretionary quota plot by the then Chief Minister of the State. It is claimed that respondent No.2 had issued allotment letters to some of the persons but had deprived the petitioner of his right. Branding this action to be arbitrary and discriminatory and against the principle of first come first serve, the petitioner filed the present writ petition. A person, who was a beneficiary of discrimination, being Civil Writ Petition No.17457 of 1991 : 4 : a allottee of discretionary quota plot, complains of discrimination and arbitrariness in allotment of the same largesse. Is the petitioner not mindful of an arbitrary discretion exercised in his favour which is not supported by any reason as to why this benefit was extending to him at the first place. It does not sound well to hear a complaint of discrimination or arbitrariness from such a person. In any case, his writ petition was admitted primarily on account of the judgment in S.R.Dass'case (supra) and has come up for hearing now. Respondents have responded to the pleas raised by the petitioner pointing out that the very plot which was to be allotted to the petitioner had earlier been allotted to some other person and it was subsequently resumed. The original allottee had filed an appeal against this resumption. Thus, this plot could not be allotted to the petitioner due to pendency of this appeal. Respondents by then were not left with any plot of 1 kanal size in Urban Estate Jind which could be allotted to the petitioner. This is the initial ground to oppose the prayer of the petitioner. Actual reasons ofcourse would follow where the respondents have disclosed that the allotment of all discretionary quota plots were cancelled by the Government through its orders dated 29.6.1987 and 8.7.1987. Reference is then made to the challenge raised against this order, when the court had issued certain directions. The persons in whose cases 25% earnest money had been received after issuance of allotment letter were put in one category. Second category was of those to whom an offer had been made but cancellation order had followed. In cases where even offer of allotment calling upon a person to deposit 25% earnest money was not made, such persons were not found/held entitled to any Civil Writ Petition No.17457 of 1991 : 5 : allotment. The petitioner had fallen in this category and accordingly the plot was not allotted to the petitioner. It is in above context that petitioner has raised a plea of first come first serve. The counsel says that the applicants standing in a row behind the petitioner for allotment were pushed up and allotted plots whereas the petitioner was pushed back and hence a complaint of discrimination and arbitrariness. All those who are offered a discretionary quota plot or were selected for such allotment were not and cannot be considered as a separate class from a person constituting a public at large to either claim preferential treatment or to complain about discrimination amongst them. Any classification to justify the equality clause of Article 14 of the Constitution and equal protection of law has to be based on some intelligible differential and there is no reason advanced or urged to point out any differential criteria to constitute such allottees to be a separate class, which can be justified on the touch stone of Article 14 of the Constitution. This Article is a mandate to the State not to deny any person equality before law or equal protection of law within the territory of India. Since the guarantee of equal protection would embrace the entire realm of State action, it would extend not only when an individual is discriminated against in the matter of exercise of his rights or in the matter of imposing liabilities upon him, but also in the matter of granting privileges. Thus, granting of licences for entering into any business, inviting tenders for entering into contracts relating to Government business or issuing quotas, giving jobs or all such cases, are such where the same principle is to apply and there Civil Writ Petition No.17457 of 1991 : 6 : should not be any discrimination between one person and another. Any action has to be based on some valid principle to justify exception to this rule of equality before law and such principle itself must not be irrational or discriminatory. The State has the power of classifying persons for legitimate purposes. The differential treatment may not per se constitute violation of equality clause but if there is no reasonable basis for this differentiation, then it will be hit by Article 14 of the Constitution. To pass the test of permissible classification, it must be founded on intelligible differentia which distinguished person or things that are put together from others left out and that this differentia must have a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the Statute in question. I do not see any reasonable basis of making differentiation between the public and the persons who were earmarked for allotment of a discretionary quota plot and thus petitioner cannot justifiably either plead arbitrariness or discrimination on the ground that some of the persons so selected for allotment had been allotted the plot whereas the petitioner was not extended this benefit of discriminatory and arbitrary discretion. I,thus, do not find any merit in the writ petition and would dismiss the same. It is so ordered. July 15, 2011 ( RANJIT SINGH ) ramesh JUDGE