Gujarat High Court rejects PIL; upholds GHB draw cancellation

The Gujarat High Court rejected a plea filed by some people against cancellation of an online draw of affordable homes scheme conducted by the state government-run Gujarat Housing Board (GHB).
Justice K M Thaker upheld the Gujarat government's decision to cancel the GHB's online housing draw while rejecting the plea of 73 applicants who had earlier been allotted homes as per the draw.
However, the high court also directed the GHB not to hold the next draw on the scheduled date of July 25 and asked for it to be held on August 8, as petitioners had sought time to challenge the judgement of a single judge before the division bench.

The high court had acted upon the petition filed by 73 applicants. Their pleas demanded quashing of the Gujarat government's decision to cancel the online draw conducted by the GHB for its affordable homes scheme.
"The state government has power to cancel the entire affordable housing scheme if any fault is found, but it cannot cancel the draw," the petition had said.
Petitioners had alleged that the Gujarat government took the decision to cancel the draw while giving reasons of technical errors, but this cannot be done when allotments of houses were made to applicants.
Gujarat Chief minister Anandi Patel had cancelled the online draw of 8,000 affordable homes built by the GHB on June 19, after those who were left out alleged anomalies in the allotment and carried out a sustained protest.

A controversy was raked up when many of the applicants had complained that the computerised draw selected only those who submitted online applications, and not those who had submitted their applications in physical form to the GHB office.