LRS petition against Vuda dismissed for suppression of facts

Visakhapatnam: District Consumers’ Forum-1 has dismissed a petition with regard to the Land Regularization Scheme filed against Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority for mere suppression of facts by the complainant.

As per the facts of the case, K Venkatapathi Raju of Seethammadhara area in the city who had purchased some land under Survey No 48 at Ramavaram village of Anandapuram mandal in 2005 approached Vuda authorities requesting to regularize the land under the Land Regularization Scheme (LRS) on April 2, 2008. The authorities had asked the consumer to pay Rs 1.02 lakh towards betterment charges, Rs 1,57,976 towards penalization charges and conversion charges, which was paid. Later, the Vuda authorities sent a letter on March 13, 2014 stating that the application has been rejected on July 18, 2012 itself due to discrepancy in the survey numbers and the penal amount of Rs 2,33,578 has also been sent in the form of a cheque drawn on IOB on January 7, 2013. Alleging that he has not received any letter, the petitioner Venkatapathi Raju again addressed a letter on May 5, 2014 demanding to repay the deducted 10 per cent of amount along with interest at 24 per cent per annum as the land approval was delayed intentionally.

In the counter filed, Vuda authorities stated that the responsibility lies with the petitioner to ensure that all his documents satisfy the rules and regulations of the LRS and it never attract controversial correspondence. It said that there was a discrepancy in the sale deed about the location of the land as there was no clarity as to where his land falls in the sub-division of survey No 48 of Ramavaram village from the documents submitted by the petitioner.

Following the directions of the Vuda Vice-Chairman, a team of officials who have resurveyed the plots also of the opinion that until and unless the registered document is corrected, regularization can not be done. The amount of Rs 2,33,978 was returned to the petitioner on April 21, 2014 when he complained the issue to the Vice-Chairman, it added.

After perusing the entire case record, Forum-1 President H Ananda Rao and Member K V R Maheswari observed that the land was not regularized due to discrepancy in the registered document and the amount paid to Vuda was returned after deducting 10 per cent as penalization charges. Referring to the claim of the petitioner that he has not received neither a letter nor the amount, the Forum pointed out that how the same petitioner has demanded in his complaint to pay the deducted 10 per cent of amount with interest. If he had not received the amount, he would have claimed the total paid amount and not the deducted amount of 10 per cent. Admitting that the survey and the sub-division numbers were not tallied with the official records, it said the LRS application has been rejected and the petition was also dismissed for suppression of material facts by the consumer.