Plea before MCD for regularisation of illegal structures by May 31

New Delhi, Jan 24 (UNI) The Delhi High Court today fixed May 31st as the cut-off date for the public to file application before the Municipal Corporation of Delhi(MCD) for regularisation of the unauthorised portion of a building with payment of penalty.

A division bench of Chief Justice M K Sharma and Justice Rekha Sharma directed the MCD authorities to intimate the people by July-end after scrutinising the applications.

The Municipal authorities had put out a notification recently stating stipulations for regularisation of certain deviation in the sanctioned plans.

Senior Counsel Harish Salve appearing for the MCD raised objection to the court order which had given sweeping authority to the Monitoring Committee and the Court Commissioners to monitor the demolition drive.

Mr Salve said the Committee and court commissioners should not have the authority to give direction to the statutory bodies such as MCD, DDA and other authorities.

The Court should reserve the authority to act and pass orders to these authorites after the submission of the report by the committee, he said.

The court asked Mr Salve to file it in an application and the matter would be heard on February 14, the next date of hearing.

The Court-appointed Committee headed by retired IPS Officers R S Gupta and B L Vohra today submitted its seventh report.

Acting on the report, the High Court directed the land-owning agencies -- MCD, DDA and Land&Development Organisation (L&DO) to fence about 7,000 acres of land (estimated value Rs 7,000 crore) retrieved during the drive at the earliest and submit an action taken report in two weeks.

The Court also directed the Delhi Police to probe the matter pertaining to 84 plots allotted by the DDA to different societies at a concessional rate to carry out social and voluntary activities.

Counsel Rajiv Bansal appearing for the DDA submitted that criminal complaints had been lodged with the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police against seven societies for violating lease norms and letting out the complex for commercial purposes.

The Court also directed the police to take stringent action against some MCD officials including Junior Engineer H R Meena who allegedly offered bribe to a court commissioner seeking favour during the demolition drive.

UNI