Officers who can take action against defaulters must get access to files: Karnataka HC tells BBMP

The Karnataka High Court has directed the BBMP chief commissioner to ensure officers, who have the authority to take penal action against offenders, have access to property files related to all departments.

The court asked the chief commissioner to coordinate with the principal secretary, e-Governance Department, and formulate a mechanism to make available documents/records such as plan sanctions, khata certificates, tax paid receipts, and self-assessment forms, among others, to corporation officers who are authorised to take penal action under the BBMP Act.

Since a particular property has multiple documents from departments like revenue, urban development, planning authority and the sub-registrar office, it would be required that all those are made available to the authorised officers with a password-protected access, the court said.

Justice Suraj Govindaraj said that the corporation, which is in custody of the documents, cannot call upon the citizen to furnish the same, and on account of non-production, draw any adverse inference over the same. 

In the case at hand, the petitioner, Aslam Pasha, had purchased a property in January 2011. On August 27, 2020, he had entered into a joint development agreement with a developer, who had applied for and obtained a sanction plan and building licences from the assistant director, Town Planning, BBMP.

Pursuant to a complaint by an individual against the construction, the BBMP issued several notices and ultimately passed the confirmatory order, declaring the construction as unauthorised for failure to submit the sanction plan. The petitioner challenged these notices and the confirmatory order, contending that the BBMP itself had issued a sanction plan.

Justice Suraj Govindaraj said that when the plan was sanctioned by the corporation itself, nothing prevented the corporation officials from examining their own records.

The court quashed the provisional order dated June 24, 2023, and also the confirmation order dated July 13, 2023, under the provisions of Section 248 of the BBMP Act. However, liberty is reserved with the zonal commissioner to initiate such action as is necessary under Section 248 by categorically stating the deviation, if any, from the plan which has been sanctioned and available with the BBMP.

The court further directed the BBMP to coordinate with other departments and formulate a mechanism to make available the records with the officers of the corporation who are authorised to take penal action under the act. It directed that the officers be granted user credentials like a user name and password so that the same is not available to any third party.

The BBMP chief commissioner is also directed to formulate and implement a mechanism for digitisation of all old records so as to make them available to all the officers.

The bench also said that since the documents relating to a particular property are available with other departments like revenue, urban development, planning authority, sub-registrar office, etc, it would therefore be required that those documents are also mapped and tagged to the said property, so that all the documents relating to the said property are available to any officer authorised to take any penal action under the BBMP Act, 2020.