60. Housing accommodation to be in good habitable condition.
(1)It shall be the duty of the Board to keep the housing accommodation under its control in a good habitable condition.(2)Where the State Government or any local authority or any court notified by the State Government in this behalf, upon consideration of any representation or of a report from any of its officers or other information received by it, is satisfied that any housing accommodation under the control of the Board is in any respect not in a good habitable condition, it may, unless it is satisfied that it is not capable at a reasonable expense of being brought to a habitable condition, serve upon the Board a notice requiring it, within such reasonable time, not being less than twenty-one days as may be specified in the notice, to execute the works specified in the notice, and stating that in the opinion of the State Government, the local authority or the court, as the case may be, those works will bring the house to a good habitable condition.(3)(a)The Board may, within twenty-one days of the service of the notice under subsection (2) by a local authority or a court, appeal to the State Government or where the notice is served by the State Government apply to it for a review and no proceedings shall be taken by the State Government or the local authority or the court, as the case may be, to enforce the notice before the appeal or the application for review, as the case may be, has been finally determined.(b)The State Government may, on such appeal or application for review, make an order either confirming or quashing or varying the notice, and such order of the State Government shall be final and conclusive.(4)If a notice served on the Board under sub-section (1) is not complied with, then, after the expiration of the time specified in the notice or, if an appeal or an application for review has been made against the notice and upon that appeal or application for review the notice has been confirmed with or without variation, after the expiration of twenty-one days from the final determination of the appeal or application for review, or of such longer period as the State Government, in determining the appeal or application for review, may fix, the State Government or the local authority or the court, as the case may be, may itself cause the work required by the notice, or by the notice as varied by t he State Government, to be done.(5)Any expenses incurred by the State Government or a local authority or a court under sub-section (4), together with interest at six percent per annum, from the date when a demand for the expenses is served until payment, may be recovered from the Board summarily as if the notice of demand were a decree of a civil court, and any civil court of competent jurisdiction shall execute such notice of demand as if it were a decree of such court.
