The urban development department (UDD) in the state on Tuesday, through an affidavit, informed the Bombay high court that Apoorva Javadekar, the son of Union minister Prakash Javadekar, had written a letter to it offering to surrender a flat allotted to him under the chief minister's discretionary quota.
The affidavit has also stated that people who had secured multiple flats under the CM's discretionary quota after filing false declarations (not owning a house, etc) would now be prosecuted.
The government's new stance on double allottees comes in the wake of the high court earlier reproaching it for deciding not to prosecute double allottees if they surrendered one of the houses, or in case the flats had been sold, returned the proceeds (equivalent to market value of the property) to the government.
The court was hearing a PIL filed by former journalist Ketan Tirodkar challenging double or multiple allotment of houses from the CM's quota. Government pleader JP Yagnik informed the bench on Tuesday that the state had stopped making further allotments under the CM's discretionary quota as directed by the court.
In its March 20 order, the court had observed that the chief minister had "absolute and unfettered" discretion in allotment of houses, which was not fair. Members of the public should be informed that such schemes are available for them, it had stated
Under the CM's discretionary quota, flats were being allotted to people under various categories—freedom fighters, artists, sportspersons, journalists, government employees.
The PIL argued that the beneficiaries were either related to MLAs or MPs, or were influential politicians, and that the common man did not benefit from it. The petitioner also alleged that the government had not taken action against those who had secured more than one flat by making false declarations, either by way of registering an FIR or cancelling the allotment.
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