12 officials to face action for illegal hotels in Kasauli

SOLAN: The state government will soon initiate a departmental inquiry against officials of the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department responsible for allowing unauthorised constructions in the Kasauli Planning Area (KPA) following directions of the apex court.

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, September 20

The state government will soon initiate a departmental inquiry against officials of the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department responsible for allowing unauthorised constructions in the Kasauli Planning Area (KPA) following directions of the apex court.

The issue pertains to 13 hotels which had raised additional storeys without the approval of the TCP Department. The district administration has demolished all such constructions now.

Subodh Gupta, Principal Secretary, TCP, said a fact-finding inquiry report pin-pointing the tenure and posts held by the officials responsible for allowing unauthorised constructions in Kasauli had been received.

Since 12 officials, who had been identified for this laxity, had denied their role, the report would help correlate weather they were responsible or not. Following this, a departmental inquiry would be instituted against them.

Twelve TCP officials, who were earlier identified for this laxity, had been served a show-cause notice. They are eight gazetted and four non-gazetted officials posted in Solan when the unauthorised constructions came up in the area. They had denied having any role in response to the notice.

Gupta said their claims would be verified within a week as they had received a period-wise and designation-wise fact-finding report.

All eyes were now on the final report which will corroborate the role of these officials.

With the apex court having taken a tough stance on the lax approach of the TCP officials, the government has been forced to initiate action against them. No such move had ever been initiated despite hundreds of unauthorised constructions coming to the fore across the state.

Probe soon

As many as 13 hotels had raised additional storeys without the approval of the TCP Department
Twelve TCP officials, who were earlier identified for this laxity, had been served a show-cause notice
They are posted in Solan when the unauthorised constructions came up in the area
They had denied having any role in response to the notice
A departmental inquiry will be held against them