Why shouldn’t MCD engineers pay demolition cost,asks HC

Saying that the entire engineering department of the MCD had “decayed” and had become an example of “bad governance”,the High Court has issued show-cause notices to the nine officers who held the rank of executive and junior engineers and were working in Karol Bagh Zone in 1999-2000.

They have been asked to give written explanations “as to why they paid only lip-service in booking the unauthorised construction,but permitted it to be completed and even occupied”.

“It does not need much intelligence to gauge the benefit to the municipal engineers. Why waste government stationery on it? The bull needs to be caught hold of by the horn and tamed. The extent of unauthorised construction in Delhi is akin to a mutiny,in which even the protectors seem to have joined the mutineers. In such a scenario,the protectors need to be punished first and an example needs to be set,” a division bench headed by Justice Pradeep Nandarajog said.

The court order pertained to unauthorised construction in a West Patel Nagar property. The MCD first issued notice to its occupants in 1999. Nothing happened and a multi-storey structure came up. The owner,O P Grover,had approached the court,challenging a judicial order and the MCD’s subsequent notice of demolition.

“The municipal governance pertaining to building activities is under the MCD’s engineering department. It is apparent that the entire department has decayed; the stench is felt when we see virtually every second building in Delhi having unauthorised construction. Further,unauthorised construction continues to bloom and flourish,” Justice Nandarajog said.

The court said the MCD commissioner will be “personally responsible” for ensuring that these engineers are served notices asking them to “respond as to why the illegal gains harvested by them be not coughed up by them under pains of penal action”.

The officers from whom explanations have been sought are K C Meena,Rajesh Taneja and Brij Pal Singh,all executive engineers,Anil Bambah,Shyam Mohan,Ashwani Tyagi,R K Lavaniya,I U Khan and Anil Aggarwal,who functioned as junior engineers then. Bambah and Mohan are no longer employed with the MCD,which has been asked to serve them notices at their last known addresses.