CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has directed the Cuttack Development Authority (CDA) not to insist upon the condition that a person should have built a house on the land purchased by him while considering the case of transfer or sale of a plot in Sector-13 of Bidanasi project area. In 2015, the State government had introduced a rule permitting the transfer of land only after two years from the date of lease-cum-sale of a plot to an allottee along with the house built thereon.
The Bidanasi project is a residential satellite township being developed by CDA in the south western side of the city. The court issued the direction on Thursday, September 9, 2021, while considering a petition seeking intervention against refusal of grant of permission for transfer of plot on the ground that a building had not been constructed on the land.
The land was allotted in Sector 13 of Bidanasi project area on February 26, 2007. But the infrastructural development in Sector-13 has not been completed as yet. The single-judge bench of Justice CR Dash said, “Unless the residential area is fully developed with proper infrastructure, roads, electricity connection, drainage etc, it will be unreasonable to expect the allottees or purchasers to build a house on such allotted plot”.
“Consequently, if a person has been allotted a plot for 13 years, his money is blocked and now he is facing grave problem and he is unable to sell the property to meet his legal necessity, then it will be unjust to him”, Justice Dash observed. Besides, when the CDA has failed to develop the sector within a reasonable time frame, it would be unreasonable on the part of the government to impose such conditions, he added.
“In that view of the matter, I think as far as it relates to sale of the plot with houses built thereon in Sector-13 of Bidanasi project area, residential development should not be made applicable”, Justice Dash ruled.