|
Ranchi, Feb. 6: Jharkhand High Court has issued a notice to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, blaming it for not being able to prevent the squandering of public money in maintaining PSU quarters occupied illegally by unauthorised persons.
A division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Tatia and Justice P.P. Bhatt observed today that that crores had been spent by the public exchequer in maintaining the residential quarters usurped by illegal occupants over the years which was known to the office of the CAG.
The court was hearing a PIL on the illegal and unauthorised possession of land and quarters of four PSUs — Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC), Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Central Coalfields Limited (CCL).
The bench directed BCCL and CCL to remove all encroachments from their respective areas by March 30 and directed Union ministries of coal, steel, heavy industries and finance to file separate affidavits explaining how funds had been released from time to time for maintaining property of PSUs used by unauthorised personnel.
Bokaro Steel furnished a status report of anti-encroachment drives conducted in its premises and said that of the 2,119 illegal occupants, 1,725 had been evicted. As many as 11,526 jhuggis on 315 acre company land had also been razed.
Cases had been initiated against the encroachers and in 96 instances, eviction orders had been passed and were due to be executed soon. The remaining quarters were expected to be cleared soon, SAIL said in an affidavit.
The affidavit also informed the court that VIPs like deputy chief minister Hemant Soren, his brother Basant, both of whom were holding on to company quarters in Bokaro, had vacated the premises.
Others like JVM MLA Samresh Singh, Congress MLA Dadai Dubey — he had four houses in his possession — Ajsu legislator Umakant Rajak had also vacated quarters held by them.
In its status report, HEC informed the court that 283 quarters had been vacated. But, 93 quarters, which were held by retired employees, had not been vacated. HEC also told the court that 472.12 acre land had been encroached upon by illegal settlers and steps were being taken to remove them.
The bench asked the state government to help PSUs clear encroachments from their respective areas.
The next hearing is on February 29.
The PIL was initiated by the high court on April 4 last year, taking cognisance of a report published in a local daily exposing encroachments and unauthorised occupancy of PSU quarters and land.
|
