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Verify land use of notified properties in one month, civic bodies told
New Delhi: The Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee on Friday directed the municipal corporations of Delhi to verify within a month the land-use conditions
New Delhi: The Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee on Friday directed the municipal corporations of Delhi to verify within a month the land-use conditions of hundreds of properties across the city, which were issued show cause notices earlier this week for allegedly engaging in unauthorised construction.
The move comes in the light of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation issuing notices to hundreds of residential units in Burari a few days ago, for alleged unauthorised constructions, after which residents met the committee and presented their case. The notices to property owners had been issued on the directions of the monitoring committee, whose members include former bureaucrats Bhure Lal, KJ Rao, and Major General (Retd) Som Jhingan.
Friday’s directions to Delhi’s municipal corporations were issued after the committee heard a plea by the owners of these properties. However, the committee’s direction to the civic bodies of Delhi has halted chances of sealing drives in such areas for now.
A monitoring committee member, on the condition of anonymity, said the owners of these properties claimed in the representation that their houses come under Lal Dora land and are not on not agricultural land, hence the construction is valid.
“After hearing them (property owners) out, we asked the civic bodies to verify the records of these properties, along with land status from the revenue department, and submit to us a status report. Since the number of properties is large, we have given a month’s time to the municipalities to submit the report. Date for the next hearing will be finalised thereafter,” said the monitoring committee member.
He added that the notices were sent after a plea was filed in the Supreme Court by a local resident some time back regarding the alleged rampant unauthorised construction taking place in Burari.
The committee member said besides Burari, such cases were reported from Karol Bagh, Rohini, Civil Lines, City-Sadar Paharganj and south zone.
According to a senior official of the north civic body, the properties which were served notices in Burari allegedly have multiple residential units built on them and at some places, construction is in progress. The official added that the number of residential units which would be affected if sealing takes place would be around 1,100.
The North Delhi Municipal Corporation’s standing committee chairman Jai Prakash said that the civic body would avoid any sealing action for now.
The monitoring committee had also submitted a report to the apex court in the case (MC Mehta vs Union of India and Others) on August 20, 2018. The report states: “Burari area is rural abadi (habitation)…which has been vandalised and huge constructions have come up.”
“On an inspection on August 6, 2018, the monitoring committee noticed multi-storey buildings covering the complete area, leaving no agricultural or other vacant land. We noticed that even the water bodies in the village had been encroached upon and a large number of trees had been cut,” the report said.
