GURGAON: Plot owners in Udyog Vihar have renewed their efforts to get the state to impose a revision on the controversial property norms of the industrial area. The local association on Wednesday lashed out at the industry authority HSIIDC, calling the latter’s demand for a special fee for transfer or leasing of plots illegitimate.

“The law says that you cannot charge a leasing fee from entrepreneurs who own these plots on a free-hold basis,” said Sham Sundar Verma, a plot owner and the former vice president of the Chamber of Industries of Udyog Vihar. In a note circulated by Verma to the industrialists, he says that the HSIIDC, ‘by imposing the conditions of prior approval of leasing… has made an illegal attempt to subvert Sec 11 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882.’

“This act says that once a deed of conveyance is signed on a free-hold property, there should be no permission required for leasing or transferring that property. Free-hold conveyance deeds can’t be conditional,” Verma said.

According to sources, the industry authority charges a leasing fee of around Rs 600 per square metre, provided that an official permission is obtained by the plot owner prior to filing the application. The industry association has already taken the legal recourse against HSIIDC’s estate management policy, and the case was recently referred by the Punjab and Haryana high court to the state government’s principal secretary, Y S Malik.

“We will meet the principal secretary soon and make around 15 points that we had earlier raised in the writ petition submitted at the HC against the estate management policy of the HSIIDC,” said H R Vaish, president of the Udyog Vihar Chambers. HSIIDC officials were not available for comment. tnn

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