Clean up your house: HC to North MCD on illegal construction

“You have to clean up your house,” Delhi high court on Wednesday told North Delhi Municipal Corporation as its officials certified that there was no illegal construction in areas under their jurisdiction.

A Bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Jayant Nath said the Corporation should question its junior engineers who were certifying there were no ongoing illegal construction.

“Junior engineers had to give self certification that no unauthorised construction is going and there is no encroachment and the Corporation is saying that this is being done.

“But we find that despite this, complaints of unauthorised construction are being filed. We feel corporation should question the junior engineers on this aspect. You have to clean up your house,” the Bench said.

The court said it had directed that complaints of unauthorised construction should be addressed in four weeks and noted that despite this, complaints were pending for long periods.

It directed the Corporation to file an affidavit indicating the “status of the complaints acted and not acted upon and reasons therefore”.

The Bench also directed the Corporation to ascertain whether it had records of property documents and aerial images of the area and if yes, since when.

It said this exercise “would assist in ascertaining extent of unauthorised construction after February 7, 2007 and any ongoing unauthorised construction” and directed the corporation to indicate this detail in its affidavit, to be filed before the next date of hearing on January 18 next year.

Regarding the online system put in place by the corporation to receive and monitor complaints of unauthorised construction, the bench asked the civic body to file a status report with regard to complaints received and action taken under the new system.

The court also asked the corporation to state in its affidavit what steps were being taken to publicise the online system “so that any public spirited person can notify the corporation about unauthorised construction in the area”.

The Bench was hearing two PILs seeking action against unauthorised constructions in the Chandni Chowk area. On an earlier date of hearing, the Corporation had shown the court its pilot project for people to lodge online complaints against unauthorised construction in the city.