New Delhi, Oct 10: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed
the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to place before it
the inquiry report relating to alleged dereliction of duty by
its officials during the sealing of commercial establishments
in the residential areas of the national capital.
The order to this effect was passed by a bench comprising
Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal, Justice C K Thakker and Justice R
V Raveendran after hearing MCD counsel Sanjib Sen who orally
apprised the court of the departmental inquiry and action
against the erring officers.
The court, which wanted to know particularly about the
action taken against the MCD engineers of west zone where
there were allegations of non-sealing of some premises, was
told by the counsel that the superintending engineer could not
be held responsible for the fault as he was not actually
involved on the ground duty.
Maintaining that his duty was of supervising nature, Sen
said five teams under various assistant engineers were on the
field when such dereliction of duty took place.
He said action has been taken against the assistant
engineers.
Meanwhile, the MCD told the court that it will shortly
issue a public notice for resuming the drive to seal the
commercial establishments running unauthorisedly in the
residential areas pursuant to its September 29 order.
The bench took on record the statement made in this
regard by the counsel, who said the corporation was in
consultation with the monitoring committee for issuing the
public notice.
The court by its order while giving relief to those
traders who were covered under the September 7 and 13
notification had made it clear that those who have already
filed the affidavit for shifting their establishment will have
to close them after October 31.
The bench which had issued contempt notice to some people
including BJP MLA Harcharan Singh Balli for allegedly breaking
seals of some shops in West Delhi directed the MCD to serve
the notice to those who have not received it.
After the bench was informed that some of the contemnors
were still to be served with the notice, it said the matter
will be taken only after the formality was completed.
MCD had alleged that Balli had led a group of people in
July which tampered with the seal of the shops that were
illegally operating in the residential areas in some
localities of West Delhi, including Raja Garden Area.
The court had sought specific response from Balli giving
reference of four FIRs registered against him. It had asked
the MCD and the Delhi government to supply all relevant
documents including the video footage allegedly showing the BJP
leader breaking the seal of one shop.
The court appointed monitoring committee in its report
had also said about the complicity of the MLA.
Bureau Report
