High Court summons CVO on next hearing

Shivani Bhakoo

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 23

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has summoned Chief Vigilance Officer (Local Bodies) Commander SS Manak on the next hearing of the contempt of court petition 2317 of 2016.

Highly placed sources in the department maintained that the High Court was not satisfied with the way no action was taken in the matter, following which the CVO was summoned. The next date of hearing is on May 26.

Manak has taken over the charge just a few days ago, while prior to him, AK Kansal was the CVO. The new CVO was appointed on May 10 by Minister for Local Bodies Navjot Singh Sidhu.

The matter is regarding 85 commercial complexes in the city, the parking space of which has either been used for other commercial purposes or whose owners have constructed buildings, leaving no space for parking in utter violation of building bylaws.

The COCP has been filed by RTI activist Rohit Sabharwal. In this particular matter, earlier the then Additional Secretary Satish Chandra was also summoned in the court.

The building branch of the MC initiated several sealing drives as the court acted tough against authorities in the past 15-20 days for not taking proper action against violators. Approximately a dozen such places have been sealed, where basements were used for other commercial purposes. One such basement belongs to a leading industrialist here, which authorities were initially reluctant to seal. But adhering to the High Court’s directions, the particular building on Pakhowal Road, too, was not spared and MC authorities had expressed “helplessness” on the matter.

Municipal Town Planner SS Bindra who attended the hearing today confirmed that the CVO had been asked to be present on the next date of hearing on May 26.