Cuttack, May 10: A PIL filed in Orissa High Court has sought judicial intervention in removal of unauthorised occupants, including former MLAs and retired IAS officers, from the government quarters and collection of penalty rent from them.
More than 400 government quarters across Odisha are under unauthorised occupation. Social activist Pradip Pradhan filed the PIL on the basis of information obtained through the RTI.
Ten MLAs and three retired IAS officers, overstaying in the government-allotted quarters, have also not paid “penal” rent, the RTI disclosures, attached to the petition, revealed.
According to the RTI disclosure (dated December 31 last), Anant Sethi, Kishore Kumar Mohanty (former Speaker), Bira Sipka, Jogendra Behera, Madhabananda Behera, Balabhadra Majhi, Kalikesh Narayan Singhdeo (MP), Jayram Pangi (MP), Pradipta Kumar Nayak (former minister) and Duryodhan Majhi (former minister) had overstayed in the houses allotted to them as MLAs.
The petitioner alleged that the authorities, apart from failing to check unauthorised occupation of large number of government quarters, had also failed to recover the house rent arrears outstanding from the former MLAs. A whopping Rs 1,28,45,385 is outstanding against 148 former MLAs and MLAs, the RTI disclosures (dated April 3) revealed.
“No authority has taken the initiative to take appropriate legal action against the unauthorised occupation and non-payment of penal rent, causing loss to Odisha exchequer,” the PIL alleges, seeking the court’s direction “to recover house rent with 18 per cent interest per annum”.
The Odisha Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act vests power with the estate officers to evict the unauthorised occupants from government buildings and premises, the PIL points out, attributing the state of affairs to “continuous inaction” by the estate officers and “want of proper monitoring mechanism”.
The PIL further seeks direction to the Odisha government to form a committee to examine the pay scale of employees and revise the house rent accordingly. The government had revised the house rent of employees in 1998, considering increase in construction and maintenance of premises and also the revised scales of pay of the employees.
“Though the pay scale of employees had since increased manifold, the house rent and penal rent have remained the same,” the PIL contends.
