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JUDGMENT IN DELHI DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY Vs. SKIPPER CONSTRUCTION AND ANR.

2000 Supp(4) SCR 693 The following order of the Court was delivered :

M. JAGANNADHA RAO. J. This case concerns the proceedings arising out of an order of this Court dated 4.5.2000 proposing to re-open the quantum of punishments imposed in departmental inquiries on certain officers of the Delhi Development Authority (hereinafter called the DDA) who were connected with the land of the DDA allotted to M/s Skipper Construction Co. It was proposed to consider imposition of higher degree of punishments in view of the role of these officers in the said matter. After directions were given by this Court that disciplinary action be taken and punishments were imposed, this Court had no occasion to examine whether the right punishments were awarded to the officers in accordance with well known principles of law or whether the punishments required any upward revision.

(4) Sri R.S. Sethi : (Major Penalty)-His pay be reduced by one stage from Rs. 7100 to Rs. 6900 in the time-scale of Rs. 5900-6700 for 2 years with immediate effect and he would not earn increment during the said period, and the reduction in pay will have the effect of postponing future increments; in the case of pay revision- the refixation was to be subject to the above stipulations.

Subsequent Litigation in this Court between Skipper and prospective buyers of flats:

Skipper Construction having obtained possession from DDA without paying the consideration in full, advertised and collected crores of rupees from would be purchasers. In that process, it collected amounts from more persons than there were flats. It was the case of the purchasers that the company had also diverted funds elsewhere.
In that state of affairs, this Court directed possession to be given back by Skipper Construction CO. to DDA, together with the structure under construction, and permitted DDA to resell the property in auction. The property was resold by DDA. Out of the amount fetched in re-auction, this court directed Rs. 16 crores to be deposited in this Court for disbursal among the various persons who had earlier deposited monies with Skipper Construction Co. The genuineness and validity of claims of the depositors had to be gone into. This Court was, in fact, thereafter flooded with claims. The misery of the depositors over the years is unprecedented.
Two Commissions were appointed by this Court viz. one in favour of Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy and another in favour of Justice R.C. Lahoti. The Commission went into the claims of hundreds of depositors from whom Skipper Construction Co. had collected monies. After the Commissions submitted reports, a few crores were disbursed to the claimants. There were further claims before this Court and Justice P.K. Bahri, retired Judge of Delhi High Court was appointed to go into the further claims. The inquiry, we are told is almost over. In this process, this court had to spend a lot of time to sort out various complicated legal and factual issues concerning the claimants. Several orders passed running into two huge volumes have been passed during the last five years. Many more orders remain to be passed. In fact, it took considerable time to bring the directors of Skipper Company/family members before this Court to see that they cooperate in sorting out the mess that was created. If only these officers of DDA had cancelled the contract, encashed the Bank guarantees in time and had not granted extensions to Skipper Construction Company, all this litigation could have been easily avoided.