HC summons TCP Principal Secretary with record
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 18
The Principal Secretary, Department of Town and Country Planning (TCP), Haryana, is in the dock. The Punjab and Haryana High Court today directed him to remain present on December 21 along with the original record of licences granted for group housing projects in Sector 63-A, Gurgaon.

Already, the Division Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Surinder Gupta has directed that licence, change of land use and letter of intent shall be granted in favour of private respondents, including builders.

Against the directions, one of the respondents, Commander Realtors Private Limited filed an application for modification of the order through senior advocate Mohan Jain. His contention was that the subject matter of the writ petition and interest of the petitioner was limited only to the allotment of 13.618 acres out of the total area of approximately 75 acres. As such, the order against grant of licence, CLU and LoI should be modified and made applicable to only that extent.

During the course of hearing, the Bench had observed that the interim directions could be suitably modified if Haryana came forward to say the department would grant a licence to the petitioner for the applied land and his rights would not be jeopardised in the absence of interim protection during the pendency of the writ petition in case he eventually succeeded.

As the case came up for resumed hearing this afternoon, a letter written by the Director-General, Town and Country Planning, to the Haryana Advocate-General was put up before the Bench instead of filing an affidavit on the state’s explicit stand on the issue. The Bench took note of the fact that the letter did not clarify the approach of the state on the query put up by the Bench.

Taking exception, the Bench observed that such letters, if produced in future in response to the court queries, would amount to contempt of court and further directed that the Principal Secretary, Town and Country Planning, to remain present with original records of allotments.