Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 1 (IANS) The Supreme Court Wednesday slammed the officers of civic agencies across the country for looking the other way while private builders encroach government land, violate sanctioned building plans and ignore master plans.

Pointing to the nexus between builders and officials of local agencies, the apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice C.K. Prasad said that “the officers of the (municipal) corporation are becoming rich overnight”.

The court said that “all the cities in the country have become sick (because of illegal construction) and of course Delhi is a leader in this area”.

The judges made these observation while dismissing a petition by Sanjay Adlakha, a resident of Faridabad in Haryana, challenging an order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in which it upheld the civic agency’s decision to demolish unauthorised construction in his building.

The court said that because of these illegal constructions, in the event of emergency it is difficult for the fire services to access the affected area to carry out fire fighting and other emergency operations.

Justice Singhvi said that because of these illegal constructions, the area that is earmarked for public is used for parking of vehicles by the owners of these building thereby restricting the space for the movement of vehicles and public transport.

He said that public places have got choked and as a result an ailing person can die even before reaching the hospital.

Directing the Faridabad Municipal Corporation (FMC) to carry out its order of demolition within 15 days, the court told counsel for the petitioner: “We are sceptical that your client will still manage the authorities” and ward off the demolition of illegal construction.

The court directed the Faridabad civic agency to submit its compliance report (of demolition of illegal construction) to the registrar of the high court.

The judges said that the joint commissioner of the FMC, who had regularised the illegal construction by imposing the compounding fee “had acted illegally and this is writ large on the records”.

The order also noted the several rounds of litigation resorted to by Adlakha and his predecessor for not paying the compounding cost and frustrating the demolition of the unauthorised construction.