The Punjab & Haryana High Court has once
again held that there should be no discrimination based upon military ranks
while deciding eligibility of defence personnel for plot allotment by Haryana
Urban Development Authority (HUDA).
For those who are not aware, HUDA allows
defence applicants to apply for sizes of plots depending upon the rank held by
such applicants. This seems odd, since HUDA is not a military organisation and
neither is the allotment in a military or official environment where any such
hierarchy is required to be maintained. In fact, in my own opinion, there might
be persons holding lower ranks having the financial means to apply and own larger
plots whereas there might be cases of officers who may not be having the means
and would want to own smaller plots, and hence, putting shackles on eligibility
based upon rank and that too by a civilian organisation, may not be apt.
Eligible applicants should have been allowed to own plots based upon their
financial means and there ideally should have been no classification within the
reserved category of defence personnel.
The sad part however is that even in the past, the High Court had passed similar orders which were upheld by the Supreme
Court but till date the authorities concerned have not amended the policy in
line with the decisions.
