Chattisgarh High Court
Ex. Defence Officers Welfare ... vs State Of C.G. & Ors on 22 June, 2016
HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH, BILASPUR
Writ Petition (PIL) No.6409 of 2011
Ex. Defence Officers Welfare Asso.&ors Versus State Of C.G. & Ors.
WP(PIL) No.34 of 2015
WP(C) No.218 of 2016
WP(C) No.1447 of 2015
WP(PIL) No.45 of 2015
22/06/2016 Shri Goutam Khetrapal, Shri Rajeev Shrivastava, Shri
Sourabh Dangi, Shri Awadh Tripathi and Shri Sushil Dubey,
Advocates for the respective petitioners.
Shri AS Kachhwaha, Additional Advocate General for the
State and Shri Pankaj Agrawal, Shri Sunil Otwani and Shri
Abhishek Sinha, Advocates for other respective respondents.
Shri SC Verma, Advocate for the intervener.
On 05.05.2016, this court had taken note of the fact that one of the prime roads of the city commonly known as Gaurav Path was built as concrete road between the year 2009-2013. Huge amount of public money was spent for construction of road but the court noticed that the road which was expected to last 35 years, got damaged in two years. Therefore, the court constituted a Special Investigation Team comprising of Principal Secretary, PWD, Engineer-in-chief, PWD, Raipur and Chief Engineer, PWD, Raipur, to look into the matter and submit its report on the following points :
• Whether the planning, designing and construction of Gaurav Path has been done in accordance with the applicable standards, norms and SORs fixed, if not, specify the violations and the individual responsible for the same?
• Whether basic soil testing & other pre-requisites were carried out before, after or even during construction of Gaurav Path, if yes, specify the reasons for such early damage of the road claimed by the Municipal Corporation to have its life of 35 years in normal course? • Whether the standards applicable for the construction of RCC road in the urban areas have been duly followed? The committee so constituted has submitted its report that the work carried out was sub-standard and there were other deficiencies also. We cannot countenance misuse or wastage of Crores of rupees of public money in this regard.
The committee constituted by this court comprised level of officers of the State Government at the highest level, and therefore, action has to be taken on this report, and as such, we direct the Chief Secretary of the State to place this matter before the Hon'ble Minister concerned and obtain necessary orders for holding an enquiry in the matter.
We further direct the Chief Secretary of the State of Chhattisgarh to personally look into the matter and file a report within a period of three weeks from today and take further action on the report submitted before this court. Departmental proceedings and criminal proceedings must be started/initiated against the erring officials.
In case, it is found that the construction company/authority/body engaged to construct the road was negligent, then action can also be instituted for recovery of the amount which the government will now have to spend again for re-concretization of the road.
Intervention application (IA No.4 of 2015) has been filed in Writ Petition (PIL) No.34 of 2015.
Let notices be issued to the petitioner as well as the opposite party on the said intervention application in accordance with rules.
Reply, if any, on the intervention application be filed by 20th July, 2016.
List on 20th July, 2016.
Sd/- Sd/-
(Deepak Gupta) (P.Sam Koshy)
CHIEF JUSTICE JUDGE
Inder