Punjab and Haryana High Court seeks Chandigarh MC reply on tampered DPR charge

Chandigarh, July 5

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has granted Municipal Corporation time till August 27 to respond to an application seeking investigation into the submission of a “tampered detailed project report” in November last year on the Dadu Majra garbage dump.

“The counsel for the respondent – Municipal Corporation, Chandigarh, prays for and is granted time to file a reply to the application,” the Bench of Acting Chief Justice GS Sandhawalia and Justice Vikas Bahl asserted. It was hearing two petitions filed in public interest regarding the waste management issue — one by Dipti Singh through counsel Ranjan Lakhanpal and the other by advocate Amit Sharma.

As the matter came up for resumed hearing, the Bench took on record a status report submitted by the Municipal Corporation and expert solutions submitted by advocate Molly Lakhanpal on petitioner Dipti Singh’s behalf.

Appearing in person before the Bench, Sharma pointed out that the respondents had filed yet another misleading status report without replying to the notice of investigation issued in February regarding the detailed project report (DPR), which had over 150 handwritten changes to the financials and again failed to accurately depict the situation.

Sharma submitted that there was only one mountain of garbage in 2016. But another emerged by 2022. One of the mountains towards the highway had been flattened. He added the mismanagement of waste was evident from the emergence of the “third mountain of garbage”, as large as the first one, despite claims of not dumping fresh waste in the area. He also pointed out that the reality on the ground contradicted the claims in the status report.

Sharma also described as false, fabricated and misleading Municipal Corporation’s claims regarding efforts to remove the garbage and insisting that there was no smell or other related issues.