Consumer court raps Chandigarh Estate Office

Admn fined Rs 50,000 for procedural wranglings

Chandigarh, October 27
Showcasing illegality in official proceedings and causing public harassment due to procedural wrangling has been highlighted in a severe reprimand that the estate office of the UT Administration recently received at the hands of a local consumer court.

The court has since ordered the Administration to pay Rs 25,000 each to Avtar Singh and Anup Singh in a case pertaining to harassment and delay caused in transfer of a property in Sector 35 in their names.

The Administration was also asked to pay litigation costs of Rs 5,500. It was also asked to recover the amount along with interest and costs from the salary of the defaulting officials due to whose inaction the matter was delayed.

Surmukh Singh, Babbar Singh and Lakhbir Singh had obtained a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the estate office for the sale of 50 per cent of a property in Sector 35 in the name of Avtar Singh and Jagtar Singh, sons of Anup Singh. Surmukh Singh, who was in the Army, was asked to cancel his leave and return to duty and the sale deed could not be executed. He executed a power of attorney with the sub-registrar who registered the sale deed in the name of the buyers.

Later, Avtar Singh applied for transfer of property in his name, which the estate office kept pending. The complainant was asked to submit Rs 12,000, which he did. Even then, the matter was not disposed of. The estate office took the position that the sellers had not informed it that they were selling the house through general power of attorney (GPA) and that the estate office had not been supplied a copy of the rectified sale deed.

After going through details of the case, the court said: “The approach of the estate office in this regard was not only unjustified but also illegal.” It had not been able to cite any law under which it was required to be informed by the complainant or the owner about the execution of a power of attorney. And the orders issued by the authorities were not binding, it stated.

The order read: “It is desired that such like office orders pertaining to the rights of the general public should be examined by the estate office in light of the law of the land before issuing the same. We have no hesitation in concluding that the owner of the property has a right to execute the GPA for the transfer of ownership rights in favour of the person an owner likes.”