HC slams slow pace of drive

The rebuke come after monitoring committee, informed the court that the drive against unauthorised constructions had considerably slowed down, reports Harish V Nair.

The Delhi High Court on Thursday expressed concern at the demolition of ongoing unauthorised constructions “losing steam” and slammed the MCD, DDA, Delhi Police and the government for not putting in place an effective mechanism to effectively deal with the violators.

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The rebuke came after BL Vohra and RS Gupta, members of the court-appointed monitoring committee, informed the court “the drive against unauthorised constructions had considerably slowed down during the last two months as no agency was interested in complying with the court orders.”

The committee said the problems of coordination between the DDA and MCD on demolition and their standing mechanism is yet to be effective on the ground. “Instead of taking action on illegal constructions, both the MCD and DDA are simply passing the buck,” said Vohra.

In the last hearing the court had asked the MCD to put in place a coordination committee with the Deputy Commissioner as its head and DDA’s Director (Land) and the area Superintending Engineer, Delhi government’s ADM (revenue), Deputy Commissioner of Police, superintending engineer of the PWD and environmental engineer from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee as members.

The officials were asked to meet at least once every fortnight to carry out directions of the monitoring committee. The court was angry that no step had been taken in this direction.

Vohra also told the court that MCD officials were also not acting promptly on the reports of the monitoring committee nor were they filing their reports before the committee on time.

Email Harish V Nair:harish.nair@hindustantimes.com