A.N. Jindal - (1.) POWER tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupt absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. [Lord Action, in a letter to Mandell Creighton (5 April 1887), published in Historical Essays and Studies (1907)]
(2.) POWER expands through the distribution of secrecy. (David Johan Moore Cornwell (John Le Carre) (from an interview by Pip Ayers in Live magazine, the Mail on Sunday, July 10, 2011) It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury and treachery. (Demosthenes, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 455.) All power corrupts, absolute power is even more fun. [Simon Travaglia, The Operator from Hell Part 2 (1997)]. POWER corrupts, POWER Point corrupts absolutely. [Ed Tufte, Wired, issue 11:09 (September 2003)]. Though disuse of power by the powerful lowers the majesty of the office and sometimes makes the very office redundant, but misuse and abuse of power leads to corruption and chaos. The judicial prudence requires the balance between the justice and power. Corruption and justice cannot dwell together. Corruption at high places has become fashion of the day. Any defalcation, embezzlement, misappropriation or corruption, if committed by an individual functionary, the same could be detected due to the availability of the evidence, but in cases where the Administrators, who are the part and parcel of the governing body themselves indulge in illegal distribution of the State assets, the problem to detect such scam aggravates. It was the press, media and the social activists who highlighted such modalities and helped to bring the scandal to the fore. The present case is also an example where the people at the helm of affairs of the Notified Area Committee, Manimajra connected one way or the other with the Notified Area Committee distributed 12 commercial sites amongst themselves while throwing all the norms and rules relating to the sale of the property to the winds and by concealing the same from the general public. The said scam was published as a news item in February, 1982 under the heading: "U.T. Officials grab land in Manimajra" indicating that the misappropriation of show rooms of the size of 17' ? 3" x 31.6' for a sum of Rs.30,000/- per commercial site, which invited the petitioner Dev Singh to file writ petition No.3271 of 1982. Prior to this writ petition one Om Parkash had also filed a Civil Suit No. 2171 of 1982 titled as Om Parkash v. Union Territory of Chandigarh and others, which was later on withdrawn by him. The facts in the background of the case are that Notified Area Committee, Manimajra (herein referred as, 'the Committee') was constituted under Section 241 of the Punjab Municipal Act w.e.f. 19.4.1976 with all nominated members ? 6 officials and 5 non official. Sh. P.P. Sawhney (respondent No.16), the then Land Acquisition Officer, Chandigarh Administration was made its first President. However, Hoshiar Singh and Joginder Singh Walia were the President and Secretary of the Committee respectively at the time when the plots in question were allotted i.e. on 2.7.1979.
(3.) APPREHENDING a haphazard construction within the jurisdiction of Notified Area Committee, it passed a resolution on 24.1.1978 for acquiring the land for setting up the commercial as well as residential sectors in the area. Notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act was published on 2.1.1979. The Chief Architect wrote to the President of the Committee on 24.4.1979 for demarcation the ground to check the feasibility of the site and communicated that the lay out plan for the residential colony on the Eastern side of Chandigarh- Kalka road had been prepared. The petitioner has averred that he has been handed over lay out plan by Shri J.S.Walia, the then Secretary of the Notified Area Committee, whose sons are successful allottees and impleaded as respondent Nos.3 & 4. The said lay out plan is Annexed P-2 said to be drawing No.14, Job No.77 dated 27.04.1979. The said lay out plan does not bear the signatures of the officials involved in the preparation of the same, but is recited as signed i.e. Sd/-. There is another lay out plan appended with the written statement of respondent No.5, as Annexure R-5/3. The said lay out plan carries the impressions of signatures of the officials. The inference is that the photocopy produced by the respondents is from the original, whereas the copy produced by the petitioner is from the copy. Both are materially different. The description of the plots carved out in such plans is as under: DETAIL OF PLOTS (Annexure P-2) DETAIL OF PLOTS (Annexure R5/3) Category of Plots Size of Plots No. of Plots Category of plots Size of plots Nos. of plots 1 ? Kanal 1-87, 121-126, 251-253 14 Marla 101-120, 127-169 143-250 10 Marla 110-242 48'-9" x 97'-6" 39' 0" x 18' 0" 29' 3" x 78' 0" 96 71 75 Total 242 Commercial Sites 34' 6" x 15' 0" 79 Total 321 1 Kanal 10 Marla 7? Marla 5? Marla 48' 9" x 97' 6" 29' 3" x 78' 0" 24' 0" x 72' 0" 19' 6" x 58' 6" 81 88 78 98 Commercial Sites 79 Total 424;