KOLKATA: Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the Dinhata Municipality in Cooch Behar to show reasons why action should not be taken against it for collecting Rs 40,000 as “development fund” from individuals applying for urban dwelling units under the PMAY.
The court also found that the municipality struck off the names of 187 prospective beneficiaries from the PMAY list for not paying the “development fund”. The name of a person from the SC community was also dropped from the list.
A division bench of CJ TS Sivagnanam and Justice Chaitali Chatterjee (Das) directed the municipality to submit in the affidavit why action should not be taken against the municipality chairman. The bench took note of the Auditor General (Audit II) office’s report in Nov 2022, which found that the municipality had collected Rs 4.39 crore since 2015-16 towards this “development fund”. The court ordered the municipality to submit the affidavit within three weeks.
