CHANDIGARH NEWS: Notices Fail To Move Bir Out Of MLA Flat
CHANDIGARH: It’s been three years since they ceased to be MLAs, but former deputy speaker of the Punjab Assembly Bir Devinder Singh and two other leaders of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) have yet to clear out of the government accommodation allotted to them here.
This, despite the fact that Bir Devinder and former SAD MLAs Gobind Singh Kanjhla and Ranjit Singh Talwandi have been issued several notices to, vacate the flats they were allotted in 2002 for their tenure in the Assembly.
Ever since the House was dissolved in March 2007, the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat has served six notices on Bir Devinder Singh and even written to the Chandigarh Administration to get Flat No. 33 in Sector 4 vacated, as it is the property of the UT.
Three notices have been issued to Talwandi and Kanjhla for their Flat Nos. 3016 and 3025 in Sector 39, according to information procured by HT under the RTI Act.
The case of the two Akali leaders is being heard since April 11, 2008, by a senior official of the General Administration Department of Punjab, who has the authority to have the flats vacated forcibly under the Eviction Act, 1971.
The matter regarding Bir Devinder, who switched from the Congress to SAD just before the Lok Sabha elections, is being heard by the UT Administration under the same law.
When contacted, Bir Devinder said: “If people like Surjit Singh Barnala and Maninderjit Singh Bitta can continue to occupy government bungalows in Chandigarh, then what wrong a poor man like me has committed if I have kept the house to meet my people from Mohali and Kharar who had elected me to the Vidhan Sabha (for the last tenure).”
The former MLA has converted the flat into his personal office. Otherwise living in Patiala, he said he could not afford a house on rent in Mohali.
On his part, Talwandi said he was a cancer patient and needed regular check-ups at Mohali’s , Fortis Hospital, and also regularly travelled to the Tata Cancer Institute in Mumbai.
Kanjhla reportedly does not even live in the flat in his occupation, which was found locked when HT checked the place. He could not be contacted for comment.
SOURCE-HT