Legal notice served on LIT

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, February 26

In a move which would cause embarrassment to the higher-ups of the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT), a resident of Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar Baljeet Singh has served a legal notice to the Punjab Government and the Trust to evict the unlawful occupants from the community centres in Block C and H/I in compliance with the orders passed by the Additional Chief Secretary, Local Government, as well as eviction notices issued to the occupants welfare societies. The notice says in event of non-compliance within 30 days of the receipt of notice, the residents would move the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The legal notice served by Sarvdavinder Goyal, an advocate of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, says allotment of land to both community centres was cancelled by the LIT through its resolution number 129 and 130 passed on November 14, 2014, and were followed by eviction notices vide letter number 11813 and 11814 on December 22, 2014.

Further, when the allottee societies went into appeal to the Local Government, Punjab, who, after hearing the allottees, upheld the decision of the LIT, and the appeals were dismissed vide his office orders issued on October 4, 2016. The orders passed by the Additional Chief Secretary, Local Government, had noted that besides defaulting on payment of arrears towards cost of land, the welfare societies were found guilty of misusing the property of community centres for commercial purposes, in violation of building bylaws.

The notice pointed out that the Local Government Department had passed the orders (of eviction) in the interest of public – the residents of Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar, upon which it was the foremost duty of the LIT authorities to implement them in letter and in spirit. However, in the present case implementation of eviction orders was not carried out, either deliberately or for reasons best known to the officials of the Trust. Through the legal notice, the residents of the colony have called upon the LIT authorities to implement the orders of the Local Government Separtment (passed on October 4, 2016) and evict the occupant welfare societies from the community centres in Block C and H/I of Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar within a period of 30 days from the receipt of this notice, failing which the residents would be at a liberty to approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court  at the risk and cost of Punjab Government and the Trust.