Delay in reporting violations to invite disciplinary action
*Admits carelessness of field staff of different wings
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 24: While admitting carelessness and negligence of the field staff of different wings of the Housing and Urban Development Department in reporting violations of Master Plans and Building Bye-laws, Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has issued advisory against illegal constructions and encroachments and made it explicitly clear that delay in reporting violations in future will invite disciplinary action.
With the issuance of advisory, numerous directions issued by the High Court from time to time are going to be implemented provided the field staff is made accountable strictly in compliance to the latest directives.
“It has been brought to the notice of the Housing and Urban Development Department through various sources including Anti-Corruption Bureau that illegal constructions are not being reported timely by the field staff to their senior officers”, read a circular issued by the department.
“Thus, it transpires that these illegal constructions are carried out due to carelessness and negligence of the field staff who are entrusted with responsibility of checking such illegal constructions well in time”, the Government said.
Accordingly, all the Head of the Departments under the administrative control of Housing and Urban Development Department have been asked to direct the field staff to remain vigilant and assign specific responsibilities to them to report building permission violations well in time to avoid illegal constructions.
“In cases of unreported/delayed violations of building permissions, disciplinary action as warranted under rules should be immediately taken against such employees”, the Government has made it clear.
It is pertinent to mention here that Jammu Municipal Corporation, Srinagar Municipal Corporation, Jammu Development Authority, Srinagar Development Authority, all Municipal Councils, Municipal Committees, Directorates of Urban Local Bodies, Housing Board and Urban Environment Engineering Department are under the administrative control of the Housing and Urban Development Department.
“With the issuance of advisory numerous directions issued by the High Court are going to be implemented”, sources said while disclosing that High Court a number of times has laid stress on evolving fool-proof mechanism for timely checking violations of building bye-laws and making the enforcement wings accountable.
In a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) titled “A Citizen Versus Jammu and Kashmir and Others” highlighting violations of Master Plan and building bye-laws, a Division Bench of the High Court headed by the then Chief Justice Gita Mittal had on December 3, 2018 observed, “Municipal laws are framed to ensure planned development within the Municipal limits. The very object of requiring the sanctioned plan cannot be permitted to be obliterated by a person who effects the deliberate and rampant illegal constructions for personal and private gains”.
“In no circumstances, any person or the authority can be permitted to violate the Master Plan. Moreover, no deliberate violation of the Master Plan or the building bye-laws can be permitted to be compounded”, the DB had made it clear, adding “it is only the genuine mistakes while effecting constructions which are permitted to be compounded and no compounding orders can be passed in routine”.
Accordingly, the DB had issued directions to the Government for evolving a foolproof mechanism to check violations of Master Plan and building bye-laws at the beginning itself and ensure that only minor violations are compounded.
Even Supreme Court in case titled “Friends Colony Development” had held: “Though the Municipal laws permit deviations from sanctioned constructions being regularized by compounding but that is by way of exception. Only such deviations deserve to be condoned as are bona-fide or are attributable to some misunderstanding and deliberate deviations don’t deserve to be condoned and compounded, which ought to be kept at a bare minimum”.
It has generally been observed that in case of major violations, the enforcement wings don’t prefer to visit the spot till the violators complete several floors and thereafter such major violations get compounded through Tribunal, sources said, adding “in none of the Municipal Corporation, Municipal Council and Municipal Committee the enforcement wing is held accountable for violation of Master Plan and building bye-laws”.
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