Tribunal likely to be formed in a week

Unauthorised structures in GHMC limits

Hyderabad: The most-awaited Municipal Building Tribunal (MBT), which aims at speedy disposal of cases pertaining to unauthorised constructions in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, would be constituted within a week. A GHMC official said the MBT is awaiting Governor ESL Narasimhan's nod, which is likely before January 26.

The corporation would incur an expenditure of Rs 5 crore annually on the Tribunal which would be established exclusively to deal with the cases pertaining to unauthorised constructions. It will have a chairman and eight members. The tribunal consists of 4 benches with two members on each bench. Of them, one would be judicial member (a district magistrate) and another would be a technical member from the Director of Town and Country Planning (DTCP).

The GHMC official told The Hans India that the Tribunal besides helping the corporation in speedy disposal of cases will minimise the injunction orders from lower courts as there will be technical person to identify or examine whether the construction is authorised or unauthorised in the initial stage itself.

The GHMC official further said the corporation has so far identified 2,512 ongoing constructions across the city and would very soon identify how many of them are unauthorised.

At present, the GHMC Act does not have sufficient provisions to act against illegal buildings as owners were securing stay orders from courts whenever officers served notices against illegal buildings. The new provision would empower the GHMC Commissioner to order demolition of illegal buildings after serving a notice. The owner must approach the Tribunal within 15 days from the date of receipt of the notice.

The new Act would make every order issued by the Tribunal final and conclusive. No court can entertain any suit, appeal, application or other proceedings for injunction or other relief against the GHMC Commissioner to restrain him from taking any action. It may be mentioned here that a Bill to the effect was passed in the Assembly in December.

However, it is not clear whether it would be possible to transfer all pending cases to the Tribunal or not. According to sources, there are about 2,351 cases pending in the lower courts and 3,516 in the High Court. He said the GHMC would seek legal advice from the Law department regarding the transfer of cases from courts to the Tribunal.

By Maddy Deekshith