CHENNAI: The State housing and urban development secretary recently reviewed cases wherein the department’s various units have not filed counter affidavits for nearly a decade after the first hearing, official sources said. It is learnt that the official reviewed 13 such cases. A senior official told Express that a nodal officer in the rank of Additional secretary has been appointed to monitor pending cases.
Among the cases where counter had not been filed, Directorate of Town and Country Planning has seven, the highest. Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority has four cases. The State housing board and slum clearance board have one case each for which they have not filed counter-affidavits. Among the cases which is pending for 3,318 days without filing a counter affidavit is a case pertaining to planning permission wherein the first hearing was held on May 4, 2010.
The case is linked to a travel service company and is about unauthorised construction.
Another case since December 9, 2010 is where an educational trust has sought to waive infrastructure and amenities charges. Similarly, there is a case pertaining to retirement benefits of an employee for which a counter had not been filed for 2,363 days.
“We have brought our number of cases where counter affidavits have not been filed from three-digit to a single-digit figure through a systematic follow-up,” the official said. Sources said the housing department is now reviewing pending cases every fortnight. Interestingly, even the outgoing Chief Secretary had hailed the State government departments for bringing down the pending counter affidavits and hailed the work done by nodal officers under the supervision of secretaries.
Sources said that she was very particular about cases not getting lost for want of filing counter-affidavits.
Meanwhile, almost all departments at the Secretariat which were entering the details of court cases in a Court Case Monitoring System, a web-enabled facility, heaved a sigh a relief as the Government Pleader’s office in Madras High Court has been directed to upload the affidavits of fresh court cases on a daily basis.