SIT to visit office of Noida authority over Emerald Court project next week

The move comes a day after the state government formed the team to investigate and fix responsibilities of all the top officials of the authority who had approved the building map of the 40-storey twin towers in the housing complex in violation of the building regulations

NOIDA: The special investigation team (SIT) formed to probe the Emerald Court project case is set to visit the Noida authority office in Sector 6 on Monday, said officials on Friday. The Uttar Pradesh government has appointed the team to file a report and all documents related to the Supertech’s twin towers -- Apex and Ceyane -- located in Sector 93A.

The Emerald Court Owner Resident Welfare Association (RWA) led the legal battle against the twin towers (Burhaan Kinu/HT photo)

“We will visit the Noida authority office on Monday to collect details related to the probe,” said Sanjiv Mittal, Uttar Pradesh infrastructure and industrial development commissioner heading the SIT. The SIT has additional chief secretary (revenue) Manoj Singh, ADG Rajeev Sabharwal, and Uttar Pradesh chief town and rural planner Anup Kumar.

The move comes a day after the state government formed the team to investigate and fix responsibilities of all the top officials of the authority who had approved the building map of the 40-storey twin towers in the housing complex in violation of the building regulations. The state government formed the SIT in compliance with the Supreme Court order, in which it had directed demolition of the towers within three months and prosecution of the officials involved.

According to sources, the Noida authority had a committee that used to approve building maps from 2005 to 2012, when the map of the twin towers was approved. The committee had members from the engineering and planning department too. The committee had planning officials like Tribhuvan Singh, VA Devpujrai, Rajpal Kaushik, Vimla Singh, Shailendra Kaire, Mukesh Goyal and engineer Baburam among others. All these officials have retired except Mukesh Goyal. According to the rules, the Noida authority chief executive officer has the power to delegate the roles to the officials to approve building maps. The then CEO (not identified) had formed a committee that used to approve the building maps. The authority has shared these details with the state government, and it is part of the SIT probe now. The SIT is likely to file FIRs against all the officials involved in Noida next week, said the officials.

Meanwhile, the Noida authority chief executive officer, Ritu Maheshwari, took a meeting with all the officials in Sector 6 on Friday to discuss the Supreme Court order compliance. “We have identified all documents related to the twin towers map approval and will provide those to the SIT,” said a Noida authority official, requesting anonymity.

The authority has also started taking steps to be ready for demolition of the building as per the apex court order. The Uttar Pradesh government had earlier suspended Mukesh Goyal, who was taking care of hearing the case in the apex court. He had not provided updates of the case to the top officials.