The Delhi High Court granted relief in favour of an appellant seeking writ of certiorari for quashing of the action of DDA in cancelling the allotment of flat. The appellant had registered with DDA for allotment of flat in the year 1989 under its special Housing Scheme and had also paid registration fee for the same. The Appellant had provided his current address and also provided for permanent address for any correspondences. In between, the appellant had changed his address and DDA also conducted draw of lots in year 2003 and the appellant was allotted with a flat and an allotment-demand letter in favour of appellant was issued to his current address. This letter was returned undelivered with postal remarks that ‘no such person in this address. Later, appellant in the year 2012 came across the public advertisement that stated completion of allotment of flats under the said scheme and notice that person who has been not allotted should claim for refund. The appellant in response to the same made representation to the DDA and after no response from DDA presented writ petition to Delhi High Court. DDA objected to the writ petition firstly on the ground of laches and secondly on the ground that DDA made efforts to contact the appellant but on account of appellant providing for misleading permanent address with no house number or street number, the appellant could not be contacted. The Court upon hearing of the writ petition concluded that appellant had not provided correct address as mentioned in the application form as presented to DDA in the year 1989 at the time of presenting writ petition and thereby concluded that appellant had not come with clean hands and had only tried to mislead the court. The Appellant thereafter presented letter patent appeal to high court and urged before High Court in letter patent appeal that alleged suppression of fact was a bona-fide mistake and was not suppression of a material fact so as to penalise the appellant for the same. The Delhi high Court accepted the submission of the appellant and observed that allotment was made in 2003 nearly 14 years after the launch of the scheme and thereby long delay in the allotment of flat and subsequent time gap before filing the writ petition is an plausible acceptable explanation to the omission of giving correct address in writ petition and was thus a bona fide mistake. The Court in letter patent appeal also said that appellant had provided permanent address in the application form and hence DDA was obliged to deliver the intimation allotment letter to the said address in case of letter being left undelivered to the first address. The Court further said that DDA should have taken steps to serve upon the permanent address of the appellant and observed to the effect that postal authorities generally in case of absent or incomplete addresses generally deliver the envelops based on name of addressee. The court thereby held that it was obligatory for DDA to attempt to serve the appellant with the allotment letter of the flat at the permanent address (as given in the application form) in view of letter being unserved to the current address. The court also held that cancellation of the allotment of flat without making an attempt to send the allotment letter to the permanent address was also not sustainable in law. Thus, the Court set aside the impugned order and directed DDA to allot similar flat as the rate applicable on the date of applicant filed writ petition.
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