A petition by the Aam Aadmi Party seeks a direction to the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to allot residential accommodation to Arvind Kejriwal in his capacity as National Convenor of the Party. The petition relies on Rule 26(iii) of an Office Memorandum issued by the Ministry on 31 July 2014, which provides that a Party President of a recognized National Party may retain one residential accommodation if no other accommodation has been allotted to them “in any other capacity.” The AAP claims that Kejriwal meets all the necessary conditions under this policy and has formally requested the Ministry for the allotment.
During the hearing, the Delhi High Court emphasized that allotment of residential accommodation cannot be made on the basis of whims or subjective discretion. Justice Sachin Datta directed that the Union government produce, by affidavit, the extant policy on residential allotment and disclose how that policy has been applied in the past. The Court asked that the affidavit include all past allotments under the policy and how priority was determined. The judge inquired into the procedure followed, how sequence of allotment works, and how priority is assessed, especially in situations where there are limited bungalows available. The Court stressed that there must be a transparent mechanism in place, a clear, discernible policy, such that discretion is not arbitrary.
At the hearing, the Central Government’s counsel informed the Court that the Type VII bungalow at 35, Lodhi Estate, which AAP had proposed be allocated to Kejriwal, was already allotted on July 24 to Union Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary. Justice Datta ordered that the Joint Secretary of the Ministry and the Director of the Directorate of Estates appear virtually by September 25 for further hearing.
Notice in the matter had been issued earlier, in October of the previous year, by a coordinating bench. The Court directed that the affidavit to be filed should bring on record not only the policy itself but specific instances of allotments and how the policy’s criteria were applied in practice. The scope includes disclosing the policy’s application, priority rules, order or sequence of allotment, and the manner in which decisions were made under the policy framework.
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