Dismissed¶18

Imran Ahmad Mir and Another v. State of Jk and Others. (Housing Deptt)

J&K HC4 Aug 2025OWP/806/2015

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

J&K Housing Board; Bagh-i-Mehtab Housing Colony Srinagar; shop site allotment 2001; Notice No. HB-195-219 (14.06.2001); twenty-year lease; highest bidder Shop Site No. 2 (Rs. 2,80,222/-); Shop Site No. 3 (Rs. 2,55,400/-); withdrawal of offer Communications HB/9086 & HB/9085 (26.03.2015); non-payment of bid amount within 30 days; Civil Revision No. 95/2010 status quo; residents welfare committee litigation; public largesse; fresh bidding; refund of registration fee with interest; writ petition dismissed; Rahul Bharti, J.; 04.08.2025.

What did the court decide?

None; writ petition dismissed along with connected CM(s). The Court noted that return of registration fee with accrued interest had already been effected by the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board. ¶18

Imran Ahmad Mir and Another Vs State of Jk and Others. (Housing Deptt) — J&K HC (2025) — LawSathi Research

What the court decided

AI extract

Outcome

None; writ petition dismissed along with connected CM(s). The Court noted that return of registration fee with accrued interest had already been effected by the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board.

¶18

Issue for consideration

Whether the petitioners, who were required by the August 2001 allotment communications to deposit their bid amounts within 30 days, were entitled to insist upon allotment of the shop sites at Housing Colony Bagh-i-Mehtab, Srinagar, despite the Housing Board's 2015 withdrawal of the offers. +2 more

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Court's answer

The petitioners are not entitled to insist upon allotment of the shop sites in Housing Colony Bagh-i-Mehtab, Srinagar.

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Ratio / Principle

The petitioners did not make timely deposit of the bid amount; the litigation brought against the Housing Board by the Welfare Committee of Bagh-i-Mehtab Colony furnished no excuse for the non-deposit, and seeking exemption on that ground was an afterthought, costing the petitioners any equity.

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Key takeaways

The writ petition contained no averment that the bid amounts were deposited within the stipulated 30-day period in the manner solicited by the allotment letters, nor that the petitioners timely pursued action against the Housing Board for breach of its commitment of allotment.ratio¶13
As holder of the public largesse comprising the residential colony, the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board was and is master of the final decision whether to continue carving out shop sites for allotment to allottees like the petitioners or to abandon the process on account of the time interval and re-advertise the exercise for distribution of public largesse.ratio¶14

Detailed headnote1 paragraphs

OWP No. 806/2015 (High Court of J&K and Ladakh at Srinagar, Rahul Bharti, J., 04.08.2025): Two real brothers, declared successful bidders in 2001 (communications dated 29.08.2001) for Shop Sites No. 2 and No. 3 at Housing Colony, Bagh-i-Mehtab, Srinagar, on twenty-year lease pursuant to Notice No. HB-195-219 dated 14.06.2001, challenged the J&K Housing Board's Communications Nos. HB/9086 and HB/9085 dated 26.03.2015 withdrawing the offers of allotment, returning registration fees with interest and proposing fresh bidding, after residents' litigation (Civil Revision No. 95/2010, status quo order, withdrawn 05.03.2012) had stalled the process. Held: (i) the writ petition contained no averment that the bid amounts were ever deposited within the stipulated 30 days or that the petitioners timely sued the Board for breach; (ii) the residents' litigation furnished no excuse for non-deposit and the plea was an afterthought, depriving the petitioners of equity; (iii) the Board, as holder of public largesse, was master of the final decision to abandon the 2001 process on account of the time interval and re-advertise, and acted prudently in refusing to hand over sites at 2001 bid prices which remained unpaid except registration fee; (iv) the petitioners were not entitled to insist on allotment, the only equitable due - refund of registration fee with interest - having already been effected. Writ petition dismissed along with connected CM(s).

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SR. No. 14 Regular List IN THE HIGH C0URT 0F JAMMU & KASHMIR AND LADAKH AT SRINAGAR

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OWP No. 806/2015

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Imran Ahmad Mir and Another …Appellant(s)

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Through: Mr. Ishfaq Ahmad, Adv. vice Mr. Salih Pirzada, Adv.

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State of Jammu and Kashmir and Ors.

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…Respondent(s)

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Through: Mr. Furqan Ahmad Wani, GA.

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CORAM:

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HON’BLE MR JUSTICE RAHUL BHARTI, JUDGE

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O R D E R 04.08.2025

¶12

Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board, Srinagar, through its Managing Director, had invited sealed bids only from the permanent residents of State of Jammu and Kashmir, as it was then, for allotment of shop sites at Housing Colony, Bagh-i-Mehtab, Srinagar obtaining along with Road No. 2, on twenty years, lease basis.

¶13

Requisite exercise was set on course by virtue of a Notice No. HB-195-219 dated 14^th June, 2001 issued by the Secretary, J&K Housing Board, Srinagar.

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Note appended in said notice was to the effect that the Managing Director, Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board, Srinagar, is reserving his right to accept or reject any bid without assigning any reasons therefor.

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¶16

The two petitioners, who are real brothers, are said to have submitted their respective bids for allotment of shop sites so advertised by the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board, Srinagar.

¶17

The petitioner No. 1-Imran Ahmad Mir, came to be addressed a Communication No. HB/2327-28 dated 29^th August, 2001 by the Secretary, J&K Housing Board, Jammu, thereby apprising him that he has come to be highest bidder for Shop Site No. 2 at bid amount of Rs. 2, 80,222/-. The petitioner no. 1 was, thus, called upon to register his consent within a period of 30 days failing which it was to be presumed that he was not interested in allotment and refunding of registration fee was to take place.

¶18

Likewise, the petitioner No. 2-Irfan Ahmad Mir came to be apprised by the Secretary, J&K House Board, Camp Srinagar, by virtue of a Communication No. 2325-26-47 dated 29^th August, 2001 with respect to the allotment of Shop Site No. 3 and calling upon him to deposit an amount of Rs. 2,55,400/-. The communication acknowledged that the petitioner no. 2 has deposited an amount of Rs. 25,000/- as registration

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WP(C) No.

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fee and was, thus, to pay only Rs. 2,30, 400/- within a

¶22

period of 30 days in the shape of a Bank Draft.

¶23

Before the exercise could be taken forward at the end

¶24

of Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board in the matter of formalizing the allotment of the two shop sites by simultaneous execution of lease deeds in favour of the two petitioners, the Residents of Housing Colony at Bagh-i-Mehtab, Srinagar, had come to initiate a civil litigation with a suit alleging illegal conversion of available vacant sites of the Bagh-i-Mehtab Housing Colony for commercial exploit by Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board resulting in the intervention of this Court in a Civil Revision No. 95/2010 with a status quo order which constrained the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board not to receive any payment with respect to the proposed allotment of shop sites in favour of successful bidders which included the petitioners as well but which civil revision came to be withdrawn with liberty to take recourse to other available remedies vide an order dated 5^th March, 2012.

¶25

In the present writ petition, the petitioners have not come forward with an averment as to whether both of

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WP(C) No.

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¶28

them have acted timely in terms of making requisite

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payment of the bid amount solicited to be paid by them within the time granted and instead a pretext has been cited in the writ petition that because of intervention of

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the writ court’s indulgence at the instance of the Residents of Housing Colony Bagh-i-Mehtab that the petitioners were rendered helpless in making the requisite deposit as the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board was not accepting the offer of deposit.

¶31

Be that as it may, the fact remains that the petitioners did not make timely deposit of bid amount and that the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board was also embroiled in a litigation brought upon it by the Welfare Committee of Bagh-i-Mehtab Colony but still that was not meant to serve any excuse for the petitioners to refrain from making the timely deposit of bid amount and for that matter seeking exemption in the name of litigation initiated by the Residents Welfare Committee of Bagh-i-Mehtab Housing Colony, Srinagar is nothing but was an afterthought.

¶32

The petitioners came forward with the institution of present writ petition on 6^th May, 2015 bearing a cause

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WP(C) No.

¶34

¶35

of action that the decision on the part of Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board as conveyed to them through the Communication Nos’ HB/9086 and HB/9085 dated 26^th March, 2015 respectively, is arbitrary and illegal.

¶36

In terms of the aforesaid two communications, the petitioners came to be apprised by the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board through its Secretary that keeping in view the long interval of time recurring from 2000 till 2015 in which, the matter remained entangled in litigation, the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board was withdrawing the offer of allotment of the said shop sites accompanied with return of registration fee along with interest and to go for fresh biding.

¶37

It is this communication of Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board, which has been assailed by the petitioners to come forward projecting themselves as bonafide aggrieved persons.

¶38

When this Court examines the averments made in the writ petition and taking into consideration the individual letter of allotment issued in the month of August, 2001,whereby both the petitioners were called upon to make their respective deposits within a period

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WP(C) No.

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¶41

of 30 days, this Court does not come across with a

¶42

single line whisper in the writ petition as to whether two petitioners had deposited the said bid amount within given period of 30 days in the manner as solicited in terms of allotment letter or had they come forward with a writ petition at an appropriate point of time from their end against the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board for breach on its part in not honouring and following through its commitment of allotment of the shop sites.

¶43

This Court is staying away from examining the controversy as to whether the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board, at first instance, was entitled to carve out shop sites in the original layout of Bagh-i-Mehtab Residential Colony, which had left the residents of the Colony agitated to protest against the carving out of shop sites leading them to initiate litigation against the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board, but still reckoning the fact that the Residential Colony is an asset of Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board and, as such, being the holder of public largesse, it is the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board which was and is master of

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WP(C) No.

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final decision as to whether it intended to continue with

¶47

the carrying forward of carving out shop sites for allotment in favour of the allottees like the petitioners or to abandon the process on account of time interval and re-advertise the exercise in order to effect distribution of public largesse.

¶48

Obviously, the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board has taken a call of prudence in apprising the petitioners that at the rate of year 2001 they cannot expect Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board to handover these proposed shop sites to them at the bid prices which were not even paid except registration fee.

¶49

It is here where the petitioners have suffered miss of having stayed away from making the requisite deposit within given period of 30 days which might have earned some equity in their favour that they were being made to suffer for a long for something beyond their contract and, therefore, the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board should be bound to its commitment.

¶50

For the aforesaid, this Court does not find that the petitioners are entitled to insist for allotment of the shop sites in Housing Colony Bagh-i-Mehtab, Srinagar, and,

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WP(C) No.

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therefore, the only thing which justice is to secure to

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them is the return of their registration fee along with interest accrued thereupon which has already taken

¶55

place from the end of Jammu and Kashmir Housing

¶56

Board.

¶57

The writ petition is, thus, dismissed along with
connected CM(s).
(RAHUL BHARTI)
JUDGE
SRINAGAR
04.08.2025

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“Shamim Dar”

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WP(C) No.

Procedural history

How this case reached the court

AI extract

Order under challenge
Communications Nos. HB/9086 and HB/9085 dated 26.03.2015 issued by the Secretary, J&K Housing Board, withdrawing the offers of allotment of the shop sites (originally communicated in August 2001), returning registration fee with interest, citing the 2000-2015 litigation-stalled interval, with intention to go for fresh bidding; assailed by the petitioners as arbitrary and illegal.¶11
Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board (through its Secretary) · 2015-03-26
Prior proceeding
Notice No. HB-195-219 dated 14.06.2001 issued by the Secretary, J&K Housing Board, Srinagar, inviting sealed bids only from permanent residents of the State for allotment of shop sites at Housing Colony, Bagh-i-Mehtab, Srinagar, along Road No. 2, on twenty-year lease basis, with a reserved right to accept or reject any bid without assigning reasons.¶02
Prior proceeding
Communication No. HB/2327-28 dated 29.08.2001 from the Secretary, J&K Housing Board, Jammu, to petitioner No. 1 apprising him that he was the highest bidder for Shop Site No. 2 at Rs. 2,80,222/- and calling upon him to register consent and deposit within 30 days failing which allotment would be presumed not interested and registration fee refunded.¶05
Prior proceeding
Communication No. 2325-26-47 dated 29.08.2001 from the Secretary, J&K Housing Board, Camp Srinagar, to petitioner No. 2 for Shop Site No. 3, calling upon him to deposit Rs. 2,55,400/- (Rs. 25,000/- registration fee already deposited; balance Rs. 2,30,400/- payable within 30 days by Bank Draft).¶06
Prior proceeding
Residents of Bagh-i-Mehtab Housing Colony initiated civil litigation alleging illegal conversion of vacant colony sites for commercial exploitation by the J&K Housing Board, leading to this Court's intervention in Civil Revision No. 95/2010 with a status quo order restraining the Board from receiving payments towards the proposed shop-site allotments.¶07
Prior proceeding
Civil Revision No. 95/2010 withdrawn with liberty to take recourse to other available remedies vide order dated 05.03.2012.¶07
Prior proceeding
Petitioners instituted the present writ petition on 06.05.2015, challenging the Housing Board's communications dated 26.03.2015 withdrawing the offers of allotment.¶10

Imran Ahmad Mir and Another v. State of Jk and Others. (Housing Deptt)

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

Imran Ahmad Mir and Another v. State of Jk and Others. (Housing Deptt)

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

Why is it important?

What the court decided

Issues for consideration

Procedural history

Parties & counsel

Coram

Case details

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