Ghaziabad: The Allahabad High Court has directed the developer of Express Garden Apartment in Indirapuram to file an affidavit in a case related to extra units in the society. The developer was sanctioned to build 536 flats but ended up constructing 667, according to the petition. The court also sought an affidavit from AOA members following allegations that the AOA has been holding the post without an election since 2015. The affidavits must be filed on or before the next hearing scheduled for Nov 5.In a Sept 12 order, the single bench court comprising Justice Siddharth Nandan also directed that a dasti summons be issued to the developer and the AOA member within a week.A dasti summons is a court-permitted method of serving a legal notice or summons where the court hands over the signed and sealed documents directly to the plaintiff, petitioner, or their advocate to deliver by hand to the respondent or defendant.“A group of residents had filed a petition in the Allahabad HC this year over two issues – the construction of extra units by the developer and against AOA president Alok Sen who has been holding the office as AOA president unconstitutionally as elections have not been held in the society since 2015,” said Vijay Rathi, a petitioner. “We stated in our petition that the developer against sanction to construct 536 units ended up constructing 131 extra units and it could not be proved that the map for the remaining 131 flats had been sanctioned or not.”Developer Pankaj Goyal said that they are aware of the order. “I would like to point out that not one extra unit has been constructed. We have converted two-bedroom flats into four by sub-dividing it, for which we have compounding sanctions from GDA and the development authority is in the process of completing the formalities for the same. We will present our case in the court as directed,” Goyal said.The office of deputy registrar of Ghaziabad and the GDA have also been made parties in the case.“The issue of conducting AOA election comes under the ambit of this office, but with regards to Express Garden society, we need to revisit the case. As for Allahabad HC order, I am yet to go through the order,” Nikhleesh Rajan, deputy registrar (Firms, Societies and Chits) of Ghaziabad, said.A GDA official told TOI that a panel has been set up on the HC’s direction in a similar petition filed by a group of residents in May 2022 and that its findings have been sent to the state govt.Abhishek Tiwari, a representative of AOA president Alok Sen, said, “This is only the first hearing and notices are issued to us. Our legal team would present our view and apprise the High Court that a double bench order is already standing in the same matter.”
