Ashok Chand vs. D.D.A.
Background
Ashok Chand registered in 1989 under DDA's Special Housing Registration Scheme for SC/ST (Ambedkar Awas Yojana) for an MIG flat, depositing the required registration amount. He later changed residence and claims he informed DDA in writing at the time. Years later, DDA sent his demand-cum-allotment letter to an address that was neither on his original registration form nor on any document he had submitted, and it never reached him. He only learned in 2012, via a public notice announcing that all allotments under the scheme were complete, that his own allotment had in fact been cancelled.
Decision Breakdown
Relying on its own precedent and a Division Bench ruling (DDA v. Mahinder Pal Sikri), the Court held that a newspaper public notice cannot substitute for individual notice to a person whose valuable rights are at stake, and that where DDA has more than one address for an applicant on file, it must send the allotment letter to all of them, which it had failed to do here. Since the petitioner filed his petition promptly after learning of the cancellation from the 2012 public notice, his petition was not barred by delay or laches. The Court allowed the petition, directing DDA to allot him a flat at rates prevailing in 2012 (the year he filed the petition), within 12 weeks, with further consequential steps within another 12 weeks.
Lesson Learnt
A government authority handling housing allotments must give individual, addressed notice to every address it holds on record for an applicant: a general newspaper notice is not an adequate substitute, and a citizen who moves promptly after learning of an adverse decision will not be barred by delay even years later.