By IANS
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Wednesday directed the Delhi government to take action against three municipality officers and one police official for being allegedly involved in an illegal construction racket in the city.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice M.K. Sarma directed the authorities to punish the officers, including three from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and one from the Delhi Police, who were allegedly involved in the unlawful construction in the trans-Yamuna area.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in its report submitted that the illegal constructions was going on despite the court order because of the complicity of these officers with the land mafia.
The court had to intervene by appointing a monitoring committee and court commissioners for 14 zones after authorities in MCD, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) did not take necessary steps despite passing orders since 1990 to remove illegal constructions.
It was because of the court's intervention "the ongoing unauthorised constructions" had been stopped since May 2006.
The high court, during the hearing of a public suit filed in 1999 by a non-government organisation called Kalyansanthan, had ordered large-scale demolition of unauthorised constructions, including those belonging to the "big fish".
Following the hearings, 17 executive engineers were suspended and departmental action against over 90 assistant engineers and junior engineers of the building department of the MCD were taken.