Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court expressed displeasure at the insouciant approach of GHMC officials towards addressing public grievances and lack of administration.
The court observed that the civic body has lost public trust basically because they had dumped issues concerning the people and were concentrating more on revenue collection.
Justice K. Lakshman slammed GHMC commissioner K. Ilambarithi, who was present before the court, following directions by the High Court in a petition, where a cloth merchant had obdurately broken a GHMC seized seal over a commercial property in Tolichowki for its unauthorized construction. Moreover, the merchant was conducting his business after breaking the seal.
When it was inquired by the court, the corporation officials said that they were restrained due to the ex-parte orders of the civil court. But, they agreed that their counsels had not appeared on three occasions when the case was called by the civil court, following which the civil court issued the ex-parte orders.
Justice Lakshman pulled up the GHMC for passing the buck on courts for their failure in not taking action on the complaints.
He also said that contempt cases were rising as the authorities were disregarding court orders.
The judge directed the GHMC commissioner to hold awareness sessions for his staff on the provisions under the GHMC Act and about the ongoing court cases. The court stressed that senior officials must ensure compliance with policies and effectively handle cases pertaining to illegal constructions.
