HYDERABAD: A bench of the Telangana High Court on Thursday directed Shanthi Agarwal and her son Atul Kumar Agarwal, the petitioners, to appear before the inquiry officer on September 8 in connection to an ongoing inquiry related to alleged improper issuance of a No Objection Certificate (NOC) issued by the then Hyderabad collector and head of the NOC Committee Naveen Mittal for a property at Nanalnagar.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice T Vinod Kumar, was told by Advocate General BS Prasad that four witnesses in the departmental inquiry had already been examined and efforts were on to conclude the inquiry within six weeks from September 8.
In 2017, the high court had directed the State government to initiate disciplinary proceedings against several officials, including Mittal, following a petition filed by Shanthi Agarwal. The petition alleged that the NOC Committee had granted NOCs to other parties without considering her objections. In the recent proceedings, counsel for the petitioner pointed out that no disciplinary action had been taken against Mittal. The court directed the AG to assess the need to re-frame charges and advise the inquiry officer accordingly.