GHAZIABAD: National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the Centre to initiate proceedings against the UP housing board commissioner for not appearing before the tribunal during a hearing on encroachments of green belts in Vasundhara.
The two-judge bench of Justice Sudhir Agarwal and expert member Afroz Ahmad, in its order in August this year noted, “An officer in the rank of housing commissioner, we expect, must be pre-occupied with official duties every day, but that does not mean that compliance with the tribunal’s order would not be a part of the performance of official duty or is of less importance compared to other duties, particularly when non-compliance with the order of the tribunal is an offence under Section 26 of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010.”
According to its provisions, failure to comply with the NGT order can lead to a jail term of three years or a fine of up to Rs 10 crore. The green panel has sought a compliance report within two months.
A housing board official told TOI that during an April 2024 hearing, the housing board commissioner had submitted an application in the NGT seeking exemption from personal appearance, but the court had found “no justification to grant exemption”.
Balkar Singh, who took over as the UP housing board commissioner in March this year, was unavailable for comment.
The petition, filed in 2022 by Vasundhara resident Amit Kishore, had claimed that an RTI query had revealed the township has 5,50,545 sqm green belt area which included 210 parks, but could not provide data on encroachment of these zones. Kishore filed a petition before the NGT stating green belts abutting residential sectors in Vasundhara were dotted with kiosks, while others were used as vending zones.
Kishore claimed 62 kiosks were running from green belts, several of them in sector 15 and Atal Chowk.
“Before the NGT could give any direction, Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation removed these kiosks. However, there was a lack of coordination between GMC and housing board officials over the encroachment of green belts. Subsequently, in April, NGT asked the DM, municipal commissioner, and housing board commissioner to appear personally,” Kishore said.
