Kasauli shooting: SC asks Himachal Pradesh to name officials present when illegal structures came up
The top court asked the state government to remove the debris of unauthorised buildings that were demolished in Kasauli recently.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Himachal Pradesh government to submit the names of officials posted in Kasauli when the unauthorised structures that were demolished in the past week were built, reported PTI. The top court also asked the state to remove the debris of the demolished structures.
On May 1, an assistant town and country planner, Shail Bala Sharma, was shot dead by a hotel owner as she supervised a Supreme Court-mandated anti-encroachment and demolition drive. “Unless you take action and remove four-five people from service, nothing will fall in line,” the court told the advocate general of Himachal Pradesh, according to PTI. Justices MB Lokur and Deepak Gupta asked the state to inform it about the steps taken to tackle unauthorised construction.
Earlier, the court had said that the official’s death was not a result of the court’s order. “It is a result of the non-implementation of the law,” it had said. “The incident is very unfortunate. You have to ensure rule of law and implementation of law related to unauthorised constructions.”
The court on Wednesday asked the state to file a status report, and posted the matter for hearing in the first week of August.
Earlier, the court had criticised the state for not providing adequate security to the officials. The court had said the incident was “extremely serious” and the hotel owner had committed a “brazen act of defiance of this court’s orders”.