ASHISH KUMAR SINGH Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD the learned counsel for the parties.

(2.) THE present writ petition has been filed making grievance that in municipal area of Ranchi, which is a capital city, several illegal constructions have been raised by large number of public resulting in a chaotic situation, affecting the public at large and created serious traffic congestion problem, parking problem and what not, which we need to narrate in detail. The petition was filed on 26th April, 2010 and on 26th July, 2010, it was ordered that the "Respondents shall file an affidavit regarding the plan, according to which they were proceeding in the past for removal of encroachments. If there was no plan, but encroachment was being removed on places chosen at random, arbitrarily, then the officers may have a lot to answer for, considering the evils which could result to the advantage of the officers from such random selection of places for removing encroachment . The Court then observed that why short time is being given to the Respondents, because of the reason that no plan has been disclosed so far and the learned counsel appearing for the State of Jharkhand says that he is not aware of any plan of action according to which anti encroachment team has proceeded so far. On 13th September, 2011, the Court observed that no steps have been taken to remove the encroachments existing on the main road, whereby general public is facing day to day problem. The Vice -Chairman of the R.R.D.A. and the Chief Executive Officer of the Municipal Corporation were directed to remain present in Court on 19th September, 2011 with a concrete action plan and apprise the Court about the existing Town Planning and Master Plan, if in existence within the R.R.D.A. Then on 19th September, 2011, another order was passed after taking note of the contention of the counsels for the Ranchi Regional Development Authority and the Ranchi Municipal Corporation. It was stated on 19th September, 2011 that the cases of Ranchi Regional Development Authority have been sent to Ranchi Municipal Corporation for taking further action. There appears to be some confusion that who shall exercise the power of removal of encroachments, therefore, this Court gave longer time to the party respondents and this Court made it clear that there may be lack of coordination and cooperation between the two bodies i.e. Ranchi Regional Development Authority and the Ranchi Municipal Corporation and there may be some issues which are not addressed with respect to the distribution of work and powers. Those issues may also be addressed within this long period so that the public may not suffer because of the dispute between the two bodies in the city of Ranchi itself.

(3.) BEFORE commenting on Section 242, we would like to mention here that Chapter XIV in the said Act deals with the subject of building control and Chapter XVI deals with the subject of streets and public streets and conversion of streets into public streets. Chapter XVII deals with the general provisions as to streets and public nuisance. There are very many other chapters for different subjects but we are concerned with the issue of taking care of illegal constructions in view of the subject matter in the writ petition.