Probe HIMUDA officials: HC

Legal Correspondent

Shimla, June 20

Taking a tough stand on the issue of non-compliance of its order, the HP High Court has directed the Chief Executive Officer of the Himachal Urban Development Authority (HIMUDA) to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the erring officials.

The court further directed the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of HIMUDA to complete it within six weeks and thereafter submit the report to the court on or before August, 20.

The court passed this order after perusing the report filed by a committee, headed by the Superintending Engineer of HIMUDA, constituted for fixing the responsibilities of those officers under whose tenure encroachments came into existence on HIMUDA-allotted building.

In its earlier order, the court had directed the CEO, HIMUDA, to hold an inquiry that how and during whose tenure such encroachments came into existence and fix responsibility and file its report before June 18.

In compliance to this direction, the CEO, HIMUDA, constituted a four-members committee for this purpose. In its compliance report, instead of fixing the responsibilities the committee had given clean chit to all the officials of HIMUDA.

Taking a serious note of this, Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan observed that “It was incumbent upon the committee constituted by HIMUDA to have clearly spelt out as to how and during whose tenure such encroachments came into existence. After all, the encroachments could have not come about over night and furthermore, construction of such magnitude could not have been raised and gone undetected and unnoticed without the active connivance of the officials of HIMUDA. Therefore, the committee constituted by the respondents has tried to hoodwink the court by not projecting true and correct picture.”

Justice Chauhan further observed that “The court has no hesitation to observe that the aforesaid committee instead of assisting the court in order to curb the menace of illegal constructions and thereby bringing about true picture before the court, have not only made every endeavour, but have left no stone unturned to shield or protect such officers/officials little realising that this would only embolden the others to raise unauthorised constructions.”

The court further said “The committee members are prima facie found to have deliberately disobeyed and violated with impunity the clear-cut directions passed by the court.”

While directing the CEO to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the committee members, the court observed that “The Committee cannot be let scot-free as the court has already concluded that the members thereof had deliberately and willfully disobeyed and violated the orders passed by the court.”