| HC quashes FIR against then CEO JMC, others | | |
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Aug 2: Justice Javed Iqbal Wani of Jammu & Kashmir High Court quashed an FIR registered by Vigilance Organziation Jammu (now ACB) against Rajesh Gupta, CEO, Madan Lal, AEO, Kuldeep Kumar, EI of Municipal Corporation Jammu & beneficiary.
The case put by petitioners is that they are officials of Jammu Municipal Corporation, Jammu (hereinafter for the sake of brevity is referred to as “JMC”) and petitioner 1 is working as Chief Enforcement Officer whereas petitioner 2 is working as Assistant Enforcement Officer and petitioner 3 is working as Enforcement Officer.
It is maintained by petitioners that all of them have to their credit unblemished long service career as well as service records and not even a single complaint was ever reported against them.
It is being stated that petitioners, while performing their official duties, have taken all stringent measures against all the persons who were involved in raising construction of their buildings in violation of the building permission granted under the Act of 1988, and being field staff, it is because of active surveillance and inspections made by petitioners that violations committed by various persons while raising constructions in breach of sanctioned building plans, were unearthed and proceedings against them were initiated by JMC.
It is stated that while performing his duties, petitioner 3 on 18th June 2014 observed that one Manju Gupta R/o Plot number 341 Bakshi Nagar, Jammu, started the unauthorized construction of ground floor and on demand, no building permission was shown on spot, and accordingly, on the report of petitioner no.3, petitioner no.1, in exercise of powers vested in him under Section 12 (1) of the J&K Control of Building Operation Act, 1988, issued notice no.JMC/CEO/197/2/2014 dated 18th June 2014, calling upon the said defaulter to discontinue operation of unauthorized construction from the date of service of the said notice, failing which action required under law would be taken against her.
In reply to the notice, Manju submitted reply on 20th June 2014, in which she stated that site plan was duly approved and construction was being raised as per approved site plan. Thereafter, Khilafwarzi Inspector in-charge of the area concerned, carried out inspection of the construction, being raised by Manju and observed major violations committed by the said lady while raising construction and accordingly provisions of Section 7 (1) of Act of 1988 were invoked and notice dated 26th August 2014 was issued to defaulter requiring her to show cause within a period of 48 hours from the date of service of notice as to why Khilafwari/violation should not be demolished, which was followed by another notice under Section 7(3) of the Act of 1988, calling upon defaulter to show cause as to why khilafwarzi/violations should not be demolished.
A statutory appeal was preferred by Manju before the J&K Special Tribunal, Jammu (for brevity “Tribunal”) in which vide order dated 27th November 2015 read with order dated 17th December 2015 unauthorized structure of 1778 sft @ 30 per sft for being used for residential purpose, was regularized by the Tribunal.
It is being averred that on the basis of some complaint made in the year 2013, respondent took cognizance of complaint and carried out preliminary enquiry in the entire case in which pursuant to various letters/ communications, all the relevant records/documents were duly provided to respondent and on the basis of these documents and reply furnished by JMC, the respondent became fully satisfied that allegations levelled against petitioners in the complaint, so received, were vexatious and petitioners were given to understand that no case was made out.
Justice Javed observed that facts emerging from the record indisputably tends to show, as already discussed herein before as well, that petitioners have acted within their bounds and have not indulged in any act that would attract provisions of Sections 5 (1) (d) or Section 5 (2). In so far as offence of criminal conspiracy is concerned, law is settled that there must have been an agreement between the persons, who are alleged to have conspired and that agreement should be either for doing an illegal act or for doing by illegal means. The court allowed the petition and quashed the FIR registered by VOJ. |
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