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Looking back, Looking Forward 2007

The Surup Singh Naik Case

Prime Minister Relief Fund

SRA PIL

I have filed PIL no.156 in November, 2006 primarily to point out to the Court that the State instead of taking cognizance of crimes of forgery, coercion, fake tenancies, threats, cheating and collusive conspiracy by various builders, Government officials, politicians and other criminals was not allowing an investigation of these  crimes. In an outstanding order the High Court has clearly given directions to the Government to expeditiously ensure the investigations of all such cases. With this direction, the Court has effectively asked the Government to follow the law to detect and punish crimes. The Government of Maharashtra had taken the untenable position that no investigation could be done of crimes reported in the Slum Rehabilitation Authority's  (SRA) Schemes. It had infact issued a letter to the CEO of SRA, saying no information should be provided to the ACB, unless specific Court orders were given. The Government was openly siding with criminals and safeguarding their illegal acts, apart from telling departments not to give information to the Police department,- of which ACB is a part! The Court has given clear instructions, as the attached order shows.

Citizens will have to take steps to ensure its implementation. Given below is the important operative part of the order:

From a perusal of the petition and the annexures thereto so also above letters, prima facie, we are of the view that direction need to be issued for expeditious investigation of these cases. The aforesaid direction is besides the cases which have been reported to the Police/ACB and in respect of cases where FIRs have been lodged, the concerned Police Station/Department/ ACB would process those cases in accordance with the procedure prescribed for investigation of such cases and if the report discloses cognizable offence, register FIRs in the matter and investigate the cases as expeditiously as possible. We expect the State would provide all the necessary assistance in the form of infrastructure/ logistic and sufficient personnel to assist the concerned Police Station/ Department/ACB to facilitate speedy investigation into these cases, giving them top priority, which is the need of the day, considering the large scale corruption reported in the implementation of the SRA scheme.

Citizens and organizations who have filed complaints with the Anti-corruption Bureau or Police should attach the High Court order and file a letter asking the respective Police agency to give them a time-bound program for the investigation and the number of people being assigned to investigate their complaint and from when. It should be mentioned that this is to ensure compliance with the High Court's order. After two weeks, if no reply is received, they should file a RTI asking about the progress of their complaint and steps taken and resources obtained or requisitioned from the Government. If Citizens are a little proactive, we should be able to ensure implementation of the Court's order.