Chandigarh: Punjab and Haryana HC seeks response from Chandigarh Municipal Corporation on allegations of tampering with DPR

Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court has granted time till August 27 to the municipal corporation to respond to a plea seeking an inquiry into the “tampered detailed project report” submitted in November last year on the Dadu Majra garbage dump. “Counsel for the respondent – ​​Municipal Corporation, Chandigarh has sought time to file reply to the plea and he is granted time,” a bench of Acting Chief Justice GS Sandhawalia and Justice Vikas Bahl said. It was hearing two public interest litigations filed in connection with the garbage management issue – one by Deepti Singh through advocate Ranjan Lakhanpal and the other by advocate Amit Sharma. When the matter came up for hearing again, the bench took on record the status report submitted by the municipal corporation and expert solutions submitted by advocate Mauli Lakhanpal on behalf of petitioner Deepti Singh. Sharma, who appeared in person before the bench, pointed out that the respondents had filed another misleading status report without responding to the notice of inquiry issued in February regarding the detailed project report (DPR), which contained over 150 handwritten changes to the financial statements and again failed to accurately portray the situation. Sharma submitted that there was only one mountain of garbage in 2016. But by 2022 another one emerged. One of the mountains on the highway side was levelled. He said the mismanagement of garbage is evident from the emergence of a “third mountain of garbage”, which is as big as the first one, despite claims of not dumping fresh garbage in the area. He also pointed out that the ground reality contradicts the claims in the status report. Sharma also termed the municipal corporation’s claims about garbage removal efforts as false, fabricated and misleading and insisted that there was no odour or other related issues.