Straightening out all “illegalities”, Additional District Judge Kamini Lau transferred the property — 26 sq m land at a prime location in Rohini’s Sector 22 — back to a girl who was duped by her own father.

Anupama (23) had approached the court in 2004 after she realised that her father, Pratap Bhanu, had sold the piece of land in Rohini without her consent. The property was jointly owned by her and her father after the death of her mother, who was the original allottee of the land given by the DDA on perpetual lease deed in 1996. She claimed that since her parents had strained relations, she lived with her maternal family throughout. Bhanu took undue advantage of this and allegedly affixed the photograph of a different girl while registering the deed and sold it off to one Geeta Rani in 2003.

Anupama wrote to the DDA a number of times but to no avail. She then moved court. In the meantime, Geeta Rani sold of the property to C L Gupta, a lawyer practicing in the district courts, at a throwaway price of Rs 38,800.

Gupta reportedly started construction on the land, forcing Anupama to hastily petition the court for restraining him. The petition was admitted by the court in 2004 but while the proceedings ran in court, Gupta sold the land to one Vijay Aggarwal, a realtor, even as the court sent summons to him, asking him to maintain status quo with respect to the property.

While Anupama contended that Gupta and Aggarwal were together in the business of purchasing disputed properties, Gupta told the judge that he never received the summons and had no idea that he could not sell the property.

ADJ Lau held all these transactions illegal and restored Anupama’s right as the joint owner of the property. The court also noted that as per the rules, a DDA leasehold property cannot be sold without the consent of the DDA and also not within 10 years of allotment. “The sale of the leasehold property without the consent of the primary lessor (DDA) and without protecting the interest of the co-allottee, who in the present case was a minor, is ex-facie bad,” the judge said.

The court also took Gupta to task for his complicity in illegal land dealings and said: “It is rather unfortunate that Gupta, who is an advocate by profession, has got himself involved with such dubious activity, of sale and purchase of disputed properties, which tends to bring disrepute to the entire profession for which he can even be proceeded against professionally.”