Delhi High Court Upholds Rule 43 CGGPRA Rules
The Delhi Excessive Court docket has upheld the constitutional validity of Rule 43 of the Central Authorities Normal Pool Residential Lodging (CGGPRA) Guidelines, 2017, which restricts Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) personnel posted in Non-Household Stations from retaining their allotted authorities quarters for greater than three years. Dismissing a batch of petitions, the Court docket dominated that the rule is neither arbitrary nor violative of Article 14 of the Structure.
A Division Bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Shalinder Kaur noticed, “We’re of the thought-about view that the Rule 43 of the CGGPRA Guidelines can’t be held to be arbitrary or violative of Article 14 of the Structure of India, inasmuch as the identical has been framed upon due consideration of all related elements. The imposition of a three-year cap on retention of lodging doesn’t seem to be both whimsical or fanciful in order to ask the vice of arbitrariness.”
Advocate Dr. S.S. Hooda appeared for the Petitioners, whereas Advocate Farman Ali represented the Respondents.
Transient Details
The Petitioners had been serving officers and personnel of assorted CAPFs, together with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Central Reserve Police Pressure (CRPF), and others, who had been posted to designated Non-Household Stations throughout areas similar to Jammu & Kashmir, the North-East, and Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas.
Previous to the 2017 Guidelines, a number of authorities communications, together with Workplace Memoranda issued by the Directorate of Estates and the Ministry of Residence Affairs, had allowed CAPF personnel to retain their Normal Pool Residential Lodging (GPRA) for the total period of their Non-Household Station posting, or not less than until the tip of the educational session of their youngsters. In some instances, retention was granted for as lengthy as 7 years.
Nevertheless, Rule 43 of the CGGPRA Guidelines, 2017, launched a set outer restrict of three years for such retention. The Petitioners contended that this was a regressive change, discriminatory compared with Armed Forces personnel who loved extra versatile insurance policies, and violative of their elementary rights below Articles 14 and 21.
The Petitioners additional relied on communications from 2018–2020, together with one by the then Residence Minister, requesting the Ministry of Housing and City Affairs to revisit the restriction. Regardless of these, no modification to the Guidelines was introduced in.
The Petitioners argued that the three-year cap imposed a disproportionate hardship on their households, notably on the training of kids, and failed to contemplate the persevering with nature of postings in hostile and disturbed areas.
Reasoning of the Court docket
The Court docket famous that coverage choices similar to lodging allotment fall inside the area of the govt and are to not be interfered with except discovered to be patently arbitrary or unconstitutional. “It’s settled legislation that the scope of judicial overview in issues involving coverage choices is proscribed… This Court docket doesn’t sit in enchantment over the knowledge of such choices and can’t substitute its personal views merely as a result of one other coverage might seem extra cheap or truthful”, it said.
The Court docket famous that the three-year cap had been launched after due session and mirrored a stability between particular person hardship and public curiosity, stating, “The petitioners’ continued retention of GPRA lodging past three years would be at the price of depriving others within the queue, which might be manifestly unfair in gentle of restricted availability of housing inventory.”
The Court docket rejected the comparability with defence personnel, observing that each are ruled by separate guidelines and insurance policies that account for differing operational buildings.
The Bench noticed that CAPF personnel who vacate GPRA lodging after three years are eligible for enhanced Home Hire Allowance (HRA), which supplies an alternate measure of assist. “It’s not the case of the petitioners that they’re being rendered utterly homeless. Authorities assist continues by the use of enhanced HRA”, it added.
Whereas upholding Rule 43, the Court docket clarified that particular person hardship instances could also be thought-about below Rule 83, which permits for rest in particular circumstances.
The Court docket defined, “If the petitioners, on particular person foundation, make out some particular circumstances, they’re at liberty to method the Competent Authority for due consideration of their particular case, in accordance with the relevant guidelines and insurance policies.”
Accordingly, all petitions had been dismissed.
Trigger Title: Inspector (Min) Gajendra Kumar & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. (Impartial Quotation: 2025:DHC:5076-DB)
Look:
Petitioners: Advocates Dr. S.S. Hooda, Aayushman Aeron, Ankur Chhibber, Anshuman Mehrotra, Sanjay Ok. Shandilya, Naushad Alam, Arvind Kumar Shukla, Nihal Ahmad, Surbhi Khanna, Susmita Devi, Sanskar Krishnan, Neena Shukla, B.N. Dubey, Mahendra Kumawat, Kulbhushan Arora, Nikunj Arora
Respondents: Advocates Farman Ali, Usha Jamnal, Manisha Agarwal Narain, Yash Tyagi, Chandan Deep Singh, Sandeep Singh Somania, Akhil Gupta, Sandeep Kr. Mahapatra, Tribhuvan, Ishaan, Gagan Kumar, Ratan Prakash, Avshreya Pratap Singh Rudy, Harshita Chaturvedi, Subhash Tanwar, Sandeep Mishra, Naveen, Bhavi Garg, Vivek Nagar, Kameshwar Nath Mishra, Anubhav Tyagi, Vidya Mishra, Premtosh Ok. Mishra, Manish Vashist, Sanya Kalsi, Utkarsh Singh, Pavan Narang, Himanshu Sethi, Aishwarya Chhabra, Vikrant N. Goyal, Ankit Prasad, Ravindra Vikram Singh, Aditya Shukla, Virender Pratap Singh Charak, Shubhra Parashar, Jitendra Tripathi, Vinayak Sharma, Arti Bansal, Shruti Goel, Suniti Singh, Kamal Digpaul, Akankshan, Vedansh Anand, T.P. Singh, Vinay Yadav, Abhinav M. Goel, Divyanshu Sinha, Arsh Kalra, Kamna Behrani, Vijay Joshi, Chiranjiv Kumar, Mukesh Sachdeva, Neelima, Avnish Singh, Kapil, Vishal Ok., Yadav, Kanchan Kumari, Rajesh Gogna, Nipun Jain, Vivek Goyal, CGSC, Gokul Sharma, Syed Abdul Haseeb, Hilaq Haider, Butul Khan, Aakash Meena, Anshuman, Vidhi, Akanksha Jagra, Sahib Gurdeep Singh, Piyush Ahluwalia, Kanav Vir Singh, Deepak Tanwar, Rajdev Kumar, Vatsal Joshi, Nidhi Raman, Rashi Kapoor, Umang Chopra, Karan Malhotra, Virender Pratap Singh Charak, Shivangi Rajawat, Chetan Jadon, Ashish Ok. Dixit, Shivam Tiwari, Urmila Sharma, Deepika Kalra, Venni Kakkar, Deepak Tanwar, Rajdev Kumar, Archana Gaur, Ridhima Gaur, Ring Baaliyan, Kautilya Birat, Pratimam N. Lakra, Pinky Pawar, Chandan Prajapati, Anubha Bhardwaj, Niyati Sharma, T. Imlinaro Jamir, Nishant Gautam, Sanjana Mehrotra, Arindam Sarin, Arun Dhiman, Theepa Murugesan, Akshay Amritanshu, Swati Mishra, Drishti Saraf, Pragya Upadhyay, Jatin Singh, Keshav Seghal, Shivam Gaur, Kshitij Joshi, Aryan Kumar, Nandita Sharma, Neeraj, Vedansh Anand, Sachin Saraswat, Amit Tiwari, A. Srivastava, A. Tanwar, Arunima Dwivedi, Pinky Pawar, Kritika Sharma, Swati, Piyush Beriwal, Sandip Munjan, Jyotsna Vyas, Ansugman, Rajdev Kumar, Anesweta Sahoo, Rajesh Gogna, Nishant Sharma, Subhra Parasar, Jitendra Kumar Tripathi, Gopesh Jindal, Ripudaman Bhardwaj, Kushagra Kumar, Abhinav Bhardwaj, Amit Kumar Rana, Radhika Bishwajit Dubey, Gurleen Kaur Waraich, Kritarth Upadhyay, Devender Singh
