All’s not well with the the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) schemes.
All’s not well with the the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) schemes. The Bombay high court on Thursday directed a high-powered committee to probe 87 complaints received by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and other agencies against the SRA schemes.
Observing that the slum rehabilitation schemes are “not working effectively”, chief justice Swatanter Kumar and justice SC Dharmadhikari have asked an additional commissioner of police to assist the committee in probing the complaints. The court stated that if the committee finds any illegality or irregularity coupled with “element of criminality” in the complaints, it can regulate, stay or cancel any SRA scheme.
The judgment was passed on PILs filed by social activist Shailesh Gandhi and a city-based NGO seeking court’s intervention to order a probe in to the complaints alleging nexus between builders, government officials and politicians in getting SRA projects sanctioned fraudulently.
Gandhi, who is now a central information commissioner, had alleged that private developers were forging signatures of slum dwellers to reach the 70% consent margin, inflating the number of slum dwellers to increase the free-sale component of the scheme and usurping public lands.
The court noted, “The contention of the state government that it is looking into the complaints in an appropriate manner does not appear to be a bona fide statement. Departments of the government before us are dealing with problems of public significance and social uplift. Thus fairness in action of these departments would be essential.”
The court added that the very object of such welfare schemes would stand frustrated if such schemes are hijacked by the property developers and become primary source of commercial transactions.”
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