Firing a broadside at its outside supporter Congress, the AAP Government on Monday wrote to President Pranab Mukherjee seeking action against former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit by taking recourse to the lokayukta order which had indicted Sheila for alleged wrongdoings in the grant of provisional regularisation certificates to unauthorised colonies. A complaint regarding the matter was filed by BJP leader Harsh Vardhan in 2010.
In his letter to the President, Kejriwal has written that the Delhi Government has endorsed the recommendation of the then lokayukta. “We endorsed the lokayukta order. We have recommended that guilty should be punished as per the lokayukta recommendation,” PWD Minister Manish Sisodia said.
The move comes after President Pranab Mukherjee sought Delhi Government’s comments on the report of then lokayukta Justice Manmohan Sarin, who in November 2013 had ruled that granting of provisional certificate for regularisation of unauthorised colonies in 2008 by Dikshit was done to gain political mileage in elections.
Harsh Vardhan had alleged that Dikshit had misled the public and misused the office of Chief Minister while issuing regularisation certificates to unauthorised colonies. Justice Sarin had observed, “The present case is not a new issue, if the intention of the respondent (Sheila Dikshit) was clear, steps would have been taken and authorities would have been approached to do the needful, regularisation becomes an issue before every election, the issue is as old as 2001.”
Vardhan had alleged the colonies were certified without putting any basic infrastructure in place. The petition also said that colonies or parts of colonies falling in notified or reserved forest areas cannot be regularised. In 2010, a complaint was filed before the lokayukta’s court and notices were issued to Dikshit and the Delhi Government in October the same year.
The issue of regularisation of unauthorised colonies under a Government scheme ahead of Assembly election has been mired in controversy ab initio. The unauthorised colonies, home to around 40 lakh people, are considered to be the traditional vote bank of the Congress.