Supreme Court upholds P&H HC judgment quashing land allotment to Institute of Law, Chandigarh

A Division Bench of the Supreme Court has refused to interfere with a judgment of the Punjab & Haryana High Court (High court) quashing the allotment of land to the Institute of Law, Chandigarh (Institute). The judgment was delivered by Justices SJ Mukhopadhaya and V Gopala Gowda last week..In 2002, the Institute was allotted 5.75 acres of land at Rs. 900 per square yard. One Neeraj Sharma (Respondent) challenged the allotment in the High Court alleging a violation of Article 14 and lack of transparency in the allotment process. The challenge was allowed by a Division Bench of the High Court which quashed the allotment. An appeal against this decision was dismissed, following which the case came to the Supreme Court..One of the arguments by the Institute was that land could be allotted at lower prices to charitable institutions including private educational institutions established with an object to serve public interest. The Court, however, turned down this argument and held that,.“We disregard the plea of charitable intention or philanthropic goal behind the establishment of the appellant educational institution as the establishment of the same does not serve any public interest and we cannot allow the allottee to make money or profiteer with the aid of the public property.”.The Court is its judgment has also criticized the Screening Committee which was responsible for the allotment for arbitrary exercise of its discretionary power..“The Screening Committee comprising of senior and responsible functionaries allotted the institutional sites in favour of the allottee without following any objective criteria and policy. The Screening Committee acted in a manner which is contrary to the principles laid down by this Court…… The discretionary power conferred upon the public authorities to carry out the necessary Regulations for allotting land for the purpose of constructing a public educational institution should not be misused.”.On the basis of the above, the Court held that,.“The High Court has rightly held that the policy followed by the Chandigarh Administration where the allotment of land was done in favour of the appellant-Institute without giving any public notice and in the absence of a transparent policy based upon objective criteria ….and even in the case of allotment of school sites by making no attempt to enforce clause 18 of the Scheme, 1996, thereby confining the said provision merely to the statute book, is arbitrary, unreasonable and unjust and is opposed to the provisions of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.”.According to Live Law, the Institute had two sons of a judge of the High Court and a Senior Advocate among its directors. This fact prompted former ASG, Indira Jaising to make the following remark: .Read the full judgment below.