New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday ordered Centre that no pubic servant continues to occupy for long the residential accommodation allotted to him/her after their retirement from service.
A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan stated to the Housing Ministry that it expects the government to vacate illegally occupied accommodations and also recover the dues from the people for the period of illegal occupation.
The high court said, the submission of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs that till date it has vacated all 565 government accommodations which were illegally occupied by retired public servants and has recovered over Rs 3 crore from the illegal residents of it. It also told the bench that over Rs 9 crore was yet to be recovered from the other illegal occupants and steps, like issuing show cause notices, have been initiated.
The high court dismissed two PILs which were moved against the continued occupation of government housing by public servants even after their retirement.
One of the petitions, by Chennai Financial Markets and Accountability, had also sought that government accommodation be not allotted to public servants who have their own personal residence at the place of duty.
Earlier, high court on January 17 asked the Centre how many government bungalows were being occupied by people who are no longer MPs, MLAs or bureaucrats and for what duration. The direction was in connection with an earlier PIL claiming that several official residences for MPs, MLAs and bureaucrats were being allegedly illegally occupied by those who were no longer holding the offices.