Patna, Jan. 5: The civic body has set its sights on apartments flouting building norms after a successful drive against unauthorised billboards. Two architects empanelled with the civic body have been booked for approving illegal maps of two apartments.

Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pal told The Telegraph that FIRs had been lodged against architects Ram Jatan Prasad and Rakesh Ranjan under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 467 (forgery of valuable security, will) of IPC on Tuesday.

“Their registrations have been cancelled. A few days back, Prasad had stolen the file of Parag, a building in new Patliputra Colony. Flats were illegally constructed in the basement — meant for parking lot — of the building. He tried to approve the illegal plan on back date. His forgery was caught. We have lodged a police complaint against him. Another architect Rakesh Ranjan, too, has been booked on similar charges for approving the illegal map of an apartment in the Boring Road area,” Pal said.

The case of Parag has been under litigation in Patna High Court for the past 10 years. The corporation has been planning to demolish illegal construction in the basement of the building. But the court recently passed a stay order on the civic body’s move. The PMC is planning to file a leave petition application against the stay order on Monday.

The PMC chief said the engineering section of the civic body had been asked to identify the apartments in which building bye-laws had been defied. “We will take strict action against their builders and architects,” said Pal, adding that vigilance cases lodged against several builders would now be expedited.

“We have pending cases against several apartment complexes. But we could not take action against them because of manpower shortage in the engineering section. The pace of work of the vigilance squads slowed down as a result. We plan to launch a crackdown against the defaulters now,” Pal said.