'Allotment agency can't ask enhanced price for alternate flat'

DDA has been directed to give a compensation of Rs two lakh to a man who was asked to pay a revised amount for an alternative flat after it could not hand him possession of a previously alloted property and fought a 24-year legal battle against it.
While asking Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to allot the new flat to Noida resident R K Bhilwaria at the previous rate, New Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission said, "In case allotment agency cancels a particular flat and allots an alternative one, it is not entitled to any enhanced price of flat".
The order came by the commission, presided by Salma Noor, after noting that Bhilwaria had already paid the registration charges for the the flat he was allotted earlier and now DDA was asking revised price for the alternative flat.

A district consumer forum had earlier asked the DDA to pay the compensation money to Bhilwaria, who has been fighting the legal battle for 24 years, besides the allotment of the flat without charging anything from him.
The authority then filed an appeal in the state commission against the order which was rejected.
"It is a settled principle of law that in case allotment agency cancels a particular flat and allots an alternative one, it is not entitled to any enhanced price of the flat. We are, therefore, of the considered opinion that the contention of the appellant (DDA) that it is entitled to the difference of Rs 7,025, is of no avail," the commission's bench, also comprising its judicial member N P Kaushik, said.