Court Orders

New Delhi: Disabled given Special Concession on Defaulting

In a disabled-friendly direction, the Delhi High Court has asked DDA to accord preferential treatment and consider relaxing norms for applicants with disabilities and impairment, while allotting plots or houses.

The court made these observations while asking the DDA to allot a ground floor house to one Gulshan, a cerebral palsy patient who suffers from 70 per cent disability. This was in spite of the fact that DDA had cancelled his allotment as the applicant, besieged by the disease could not make the payment in time.

'The Disability Act was conceived with a measure to ensure a barrier free society, guaranteeing certain affirmative rights to persons with various disability and impairments. There is an obligation upon governments to formulate schemes for preferential allotment of lands and houses to benefit persons with disabilities," justices Ravindra Bhat said.

Gulshan had registered with DDA for a house in 1996, and was allotted one in 1999. He approached the court as DDA had not provided water supply or developed the infrastructure. In 2002, DDA issued him a fresh demand letter for another house as per the court order.

After waiting for more than a year during which he called for persona; hearings, DDA cancelled the offer as he did not make the payment and complete other formalities.

Terming the step as "arbitrary," he knocked the doors of the High Court. Though he claimed he never got the demand letter, the court found that it had been sent and that Gulshan was the defaulter.

"In Self Financing Scheme, there is no gainsaying that a registrant is bound by terms and has to comply by demands for timely payment. DDA cannot be faulted. However there are certain special and peculiar features of this case as the petitioner is a victim of a physically and mental disorder which has left him severely impaired," the court said.

Source: Disabled welfare, finally. The Hindustan Times, Daily, New Delhi, 25 August 2006.