Unauthorised colonies will not be registered

Chandigarh:Anguished over mushrooming unauthorised colonies in Haryana,the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday ordered that no unauthorised colony will be registered by the state government and only those,which have necessary clearances,will be registered. In August,the court had stayed regularisation of unauthorised colonies and slammed Haryana government for giving benefits to “law beakers” and questioned its policy under which unauthorised colonies can be regularised. According to sources,municipal corporations in Haryana have submitted proposals to regularise 548 unauthorised colonies. Taking suo motu notice of a petition filed in the matter by residents of Friends Colony,Rohtak,Justice R K Garg had passed an order stating: “The question arises whether a law breaker can be allowed to take benefit by getting his illegal construction regularised under the garb of a (government) policy and whether such a policy can be sustained.”

NHAI slams IAS officer for misconduct

Chandigarh:The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI),on Thursday,slammed IAS Sucha Ram Ladhar for “misconduct”. NHAI filed an affidavit in response to a PIL filed by advocate H C Arora,who had sought directions to recover Rs 1.58 crore (with 12 per cent interest) collected by S R Ladhar as arbitration fee from parties for deciding compensation disputes between farmers and NHAI. Arora had also sought disciplinary and criminal action against Ladhar. In its reply,NHAI also referred to protest letters sent by it to Ladhar to desist from intervening in the disputes.

A letter was also sent to the Punjab Chief Secretary,which was responded to by Engineer-in-Chief,Punjab PWD (B&R) stating: “There is no such instructions where the Chief Secretary is empowered to issue instructions to the arbitrator”. NHAI has stated that work of NHA-1 and NHA-1A has been delayed because of Ladhar’s misconduct. The PIL will come up for arguments on Friday.