The ultimate duty of the DDA is to ensure development of the national capital and it should be allowed to exercise its discretion as it thinks best, the Delhi High Court has said.
Justice C Hari Shankar said even if, in a given case, the court feels that the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) could have acted otherwise, restraint has to be exercised by law on the DDA.
"It cannot be said, with any modicum of legitimacy, that the DDA has any axe to grind against any person to whom land is to be allotted by it, or that it acts mala fide in that regard.
"The decision of allotment of alternative plots, to persons whose lands have been acquired, is, at all times, essentially and fundamentally a decision of policy. So long, as the decision does not result in unconstitutional, or unjust, deprivation of the right of the citizen to property, it remains substantially immune from judicial review," the judge said.
The observations came while dismissing a plea by a city resident, Ram Kumar, seeking directions to the DDA to allot him an alternative plot, measuring 250 square yards, at Dwarka, instead of Narela "at the rate commensurate with the rate at which the petitioners land was acquired".
The court said the petitioner cannot claim any enforceable right to be allotted an alternative plot at Dwarka, or that such allotment should be at a price which is "commensurate to the rate at which" his land was acquired in 1981.
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It said courts are not the best arbiters of the areas in which alternative plots are to be allotted, or the price at which such allotments are to take place.
The DDA, like any public authority of similar standing, is presumed to act in public interest, and in full awareness thereof, the court said.
"The ultimate duty of the DDA is to ensure the development of Delhi as efficiently, and in as optimum a manner, as is possible, and in discharging the said duty, the DDA has necessarily to be allowed the latitude to exercise discretion, vested in it for the said purpose, as it thinks best.
"Even if, in a given case, the court was to feel that the DDA could have acted otherwise, restraint has, nevertheless, to be exercised, and deference accorded to the subjective discretion conferred, by law, on the DDA," it said.