MC cares two hoots for SC order

A municipal corporation wing seems to be challenging the writ of the top court of the country. Even as the Supreme Court has made it amply clear that a no-objection certificate (NOC) is not required during the sale of freehold property, the estate branch of the civic body is insisting that sellers provide the document.

People are being forced to give the NOC unnecessarily, leading to harassment and wastage of time. The MC department's disregard to the apex court is all the more confounding as the estate office of the UT administration and the Chandigarh Housing Board had stopped the practice about a month ago.

In their defence, MC officials say the proposal for discontinuing the practice has already been sent to the officers concerned and hopefully, the matter will be resolved soon.

On January 21, the Supreme Court passed the orders after the UT administration approached the apex court challenging the Punjab and Haryana high court order that had struck down the requirement of NOC at the time of sale of freehold property. The apex court dismissed the plea, stating that there was no provision in the laid down rules that called for requirement of NOC before the sale of freehold property.

As of now, MC is charging Rs 2,000 as processing fee and it takes around one month to issue NOC for the sale of freehold property. Property under MC's jurisdiction is at Manimajra, Mauli Jagran, Sectors 9, 39, 37 and some villages.

MC estate branch section officer Prabhkar Sharma said, “We have already sent a proposal for discontinuing the practice of issuing NOC to officers concerned long time back and hopefully, it will be done soon.”

On the other hand, councillor Malkiat Singh said it seems there is no proper coordination between the officials of the civic body. “When the UT administration and CHB had already stopped the practice, why the civic body is taking too long to abolish it,” he asked. People are really suffering because their time is being wasted by visiting the MC office time and again just to get the NOC, Malkiat Singh said, adding that, “I will take up the matter in the coming House meeting.”