Yet to formulate new housing policy, Maha govt tells HC

The Maharashtra Government today informed the Bombay High Court that it has not yet formulated a new policy on housing since a division bench struck down its policy on allotment of flats under the Chief Minister's discretionary quota early this year.
A total of 418 flats under the CM's two per cent housing quota and another 500 flats under the CM's 5 per cent quota are lying vacant as these tenements have not been allotted so far, the government informed a bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka, which started dictating its judgement on a PIL filed by activist Ketan Tirodkar.

The PIL has alleged irregularities in the housing quota and demanded a probe by a top authority into the issue of allotment of flats under the CM's quota.
The court has indicated that it would order appointment of a high court judge for the proposed one-man committee to investigate the alleged irregularities in the CM's housing quota.
The Registrar General had yesterday submitted names of three retired Judges who could be appointed on the committee. However, the court said it would have to obtain their consent before announcing the name of the judge to conduct a probe.
The panel would scrutinise all applications for flats from the CM's discretionary quota since 1989 and look for the cases where a single person has got more than one flat (which is illegal).

The court said the committee would also go through the affidavits filed with the applications to find out if the persons who got more than one flat had submitted false information.

It also asked the state government to submit additional data about the flats taken back from those who had been allotted more than one flat and also sought information about the FIRs registered against such allottees.
On the last occasion, the state had said that it had filed FIRs against 27 persons who secured more than one flat by giving false declarations.
The PIL has alleged only those who wielded political influence got flats under this housing scheme.