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Bombay High Court grants Maharashtra government more time to provide data for probe into CM's housing quota

The Bombay high court on Monday gave the urban development department eight weeks and the housing department five weeks to furnish all information sought by a committee probing irregularities in allotment of flats under the chief minister's discretionary housing quota since 1982.

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The Bombay high court on Monday gave the urban development department eight weeks and the housing department five weeks to furnish all information sought by a committee probing irregularities in allotment of flats under the chief minister's discretionary housing quota since 1982.

The government had sought an extension of the time the court has given it to supply details to the one-man committee headed by retired Justice J A Patil.

On October 9, 2014, the high court, while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by activist Ketan Tirodkar, had appointed Justice Patil to probe alleged irregularities in the allotment of houses under CM's quota since 1982. The HC had ordered a probe after the PIL alleged that many people got more than one flat under the CM's quota by making false declarations. It alleged that most beneficiaries are politicians or those who are close to politicians. Justice Patil was asked to submit his report and recommendations about further action by April 30, 2015.

The court had also ordered the government to make available all relevant records to the Commission of Inquiry including the details of all allotments made right from 1982 under the two per cent and five per cent discretionary quotas with regard to all nine urban agglomerations.

A written complaint was then filed by N N Kumbhar, secretary of the Commission of Inquiry alleging non-cooperation by the government. Kumbhar had then stated that it would be difficult to begin the probe from December 1, 2014 as the housing department has tendered approximately 500 files out of the total 1,300 while the urban development department had submitted only 314 files out of 12,000. The complaint read: "Though ample correspondence and requests were made on phone, they have not tendered the remaining files till date.... Thus non-compliance of judicial directions in respect of tendering the files by these two government departments, the inquiry committee is facing problems in (inquiry) working."

Irked by the delay, Justice Abhay Oka had then said, "You (government) cannot take months to give the files...these have to be handed over to the commission within a reasonable time period." The government, on the other hand, pleaded that its staff was new and the records to be submitted to the commission pertained to a long period of time (1982 to 2011), and hence it was time-consuming.



 

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