GURGAON: At its general body meeting on Sunday, the Kendriya Vihar Apartment Owners Welfare Association retained the clause in its bylaws that prohibits ‘outsiders’ from buying flats in the housing society. The RWA bylaws discourage the existing owners from selling the apartment to an ‘outsider’, a person who is not a current or retired government employee.

Resident D P Singh (38), an MNC executive, said, “Everyone should be allowed to stay anywhere in this country. How can you stop someone from buying a house here? This is against the Constitution,” he said.

U N Anand, a retired government officer added. “While allotting the flat, we were told by the Central Government Employees Welfare Housing Organisation that we can’t sell it for first 10 years to anyone but after that we will be free to do so. Now, because of this restriction, we don’t get the right value for our flat,” he said.

As he finished, the audience gave him a round of applause. A C Grover, another resident said, “I agree that the option should rest with the seller and not with the RWA.”

Started under the aegis of CGEWHO nearly a decade ago, the housing society with nearly 1,940 units has found buyers among non-government employees in the recent past. This has evoked strong reactions from the old timers, especially the RWA’s office bearers.

SS Agrwal, vice president of RWA said, “We should not destroy the basic character of this locality and must ward off the unwanted elements out of the society’s gate.”

KS Vohra, a former Border Security Force IG, K S Vohra, and an old timer at Kendriya Vihar

said, “We should not think only about the commercial interest. We must sell the flats only to people who retire from government service.”Another society’s member, while supporting the bylaw, drew parallel between Kendriya Vihar and another society in Delhi’s northwest district – Saraswati Vihar. He said, “Saraswati Vihar started as a teachers’ society but as people with muscle power and money bought the flats in past 10-15 years, it left only 20 per cent teachers as the flat owners. The trend has vitiated the environment there. We should not let the same happen to our society also.”

The RWA, however, offered to cede some ground by including a clause which reads that the flats can be sold to ‘any other person who the society fits’.

But the move faced stiff resistance and the clause remained as it is.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/RRWA-bylaws-allow-only-govt-staff-to-buy-flats/articleshow/29786528.cms