IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No. 1067 of 2010 Date of decision: 14.01.2011 Bengali Ram ...Petitioner Versus Union Territory Chandigarh Administration & others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH Present: Mr. S.S. Bains, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Vikas Cucria, Advocate for the respondents. RANJIT SINGH J. The petitioner, who was allotted Booth No. 214, Sector 20-D, Chandigarh, has approached this Court being aggrieved against the cancellation of the said allotment. The ground for cancellation is non-payment of dues. The booth in question was allotted to the petitioner on 26.12.1996. The lease was cancelled on 28.06.2006 for non-payment of 2nd and 3rd instalments and so also the yearly rent. The petitioner filed an appeal before the Chief Administrator, who passed the following interim order:- “ The Ld. Counsel for the appellant undertakes to make payment of the entire dues of Estate Office within a period of 1 week. The case is adjourned to 4-10-2007 with direction that entire outstanding dues be paid within 1 week from today.” It is conceded before me that pursuant to the interim order reproduced above, the entire outstanding dues have been paid Civil Writ Petition No. 1067 of 2010 -2- by the petitioner within one week from the date of the order. Still, the appeal filed by the petitioner was dismissed by the Chief Administrator on 02.09.2009. The petitioner then invoked the jurisdiction of Advisor by filing the revision petition, which has also been dismissed on 09.12.2009. The petitioner, therefore, has impugned the orders before this Court. Reply has been filed. Counsel for the respondents would submit that valid justification is given by the Administrator as well as Advisor to dismiss the appeal and the revision. The counsel for the petitioner, however, would say that once the petitioner was asked to deposit the entire amount due, his appeal could not having dismissed and the order dismissing the appeal would be unfair as asking the petitioner to deposit the entire amount in fact would give enough assurance to the petitioner that this was on an understanding that his appeal would succeed. Same assurance can be read into the manner in which the petitioner was made to deposit this amount. The appeal was to be considered in the light of fact that the petitioner has discharged his liability. The petitioner, accordingly, deposited the entire outstanding dues but still his appeal was dismissed. The approach of the appellant would not sound fair. Once the petitioner was made to deposit the entire outstanding amount the obvious intention was to get the money which was due. If viewed in any other manner, it would indicate that appellate authority had tricked the petitioner in getting the amount and then had deprived the petitioner of the payment as well. Having deposited the Civil Writ Petition No. 1067 of 2010 -3- amount, the petitioner could be under a reasonable expectation that on his doing so, his plea for setting aside the resumption order would be favourably considered and decided. Asking the petitioner to commit to a particular stand and then going back from that position would make the action look unfair. Once the petitioner has stood by his undertaking and has deposited the entire outstanding amount it would be inequitable to resume his booth by dismissing the appeal. The Advisor apparently has not considered this aspect while dismissing the revision. He has taken in consideration an entirely different background to say that the prices of the properties have gone up. He was required to consider the aspect of action of the appellate authority to hold out an implied promotion to the petitioner on which the petitioner acted upon and the effect thereof. This aspect apparently has escaped notice of the appellate authority as well as the revisional authority. The impugned order, therefore, suffers from want of fair approach, accordingly, cannot be sustained. The writ petition, therefore, is allowed. Order cancelling the allotment Annexure P-2, order dismissing the appeal, Annexure P-5 and order Annexure P-6 passed by the Advisor are set aside. If any dues are still outstanding, the respondents would be at liberty to raise this demand. January 14, 2011 (RANJIT SINGH ) rts JUDGE