Orient Cinema land allotment issue in the eye of storm.

Source – tribuneindia.com

Even though a resolution adopted by the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) to restore allotment of land (sold through auction in October 1999) to Orient Cinema in Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar locality here is yet to get the statutory nod from the Punjab Government (Local Government Department), the soft stand taken by the Trust for a prime chunk of commercial land in a posh area has come under barrage of allegations.

While a complaint sent by one RK Garg, resident of Raikot, along with a sworn affidavit, to the senior Congress leaders, top officials of the Local Government Department and the Vigilance Bureau has charged the LIT Chairman Raman Balasubramanium with showing undue favour to the allottee (the family members of the now deceased cinema owner) to the extent that the Chairman had purchased a part of the said property, Balasubramanium vehemently rubbished the allegations as being figments of imagination and far from being true.

The said cinema site with land measuring 3556 square yards was sold by LIT through auction in October 1999 for Rs 1,08,99,140. The buyer Kanwaljit Singh (now deceased) had deposited 25 per cent of the bid price (Rs 27,25,410) at the time of allotment and the balance amount was to be paid in five equated half-yearly instalments. Thereafter, the allottee paid only one instalment (Rs 21,25,345) in February 2000 and defaulted on payment of balance amount.

As the LIT issued notices for payment of overdue instalments and interest thereon, the cinema owner went to the court and it was on the directions of the court that he had deposited Rs 20,27,250 (Jan 2001) and Rs 20,00,000 (April 2002). For default in balance payment, the LIT had cancelled the allotment but no further action was taken to dispossess the allottee or take over possession of the site. In the meantime, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had issued a ‘status quo’ (stay) order with regard to the cinema site and the original buyer Kanwaljit Singh also died in a road accident.

It was on a representation made by the widow of the allottee that LIT adopted a resolution (no. 174 on September 25, 2019) that the issue of allotment of cinema site and recovery of arrears be reconsidered on ‘compassionate and sympathetic grounds’. Accordingly, it has been proposed to restore the allotment on recovery of simple 12 per cent interest on the balance amount and further that penal interest and penalty on default be waived albeit with the condition that all court cases in this matter would be withdrawn.

Questions were being raised as to the justification of waiver of penalty and penal interest particularly for a commercial site sold in open auction with insinuations that there was more to it than meets the eye. Moreover, if an exception was made in one case, it could open the floodgates to so many more similar or more deserving cases where allottees would seek concessions on sympathetic grounds.

Balasubramanium, however, stood his ground and said now that the government had introduced ‘one time settlement scheme’ for defaulters, the cinema owners were even otherwise eligible to apply for restoration of allotment. “The Trust had adopted the resolution (for waiver of penalty and penal interest) on the directions of the government on a representation by the allottee’s family members,” he maintained while alleging that the so-called ‘anonymous’ complaint was the handiwork of his political rivals.