The High Court has issued a rule seeking explanation from the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakkha (RAJUK) over the missing of documents of about 30,000 clients from its website.
The HC bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat on Monday (January 2) issued the suo moto rule following a media report published in a national daily.
RAJUK chairman has been asked to submit an explanation within 30 days on whether the incident is authentic, and if it is true then what steps have been taken in this regard.
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) lawyer Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan drew attention of the High Court in this regard by placing the news report before the HC bench for necessary order.
The court also fixed February 5 for hearing on the issue, said Khurshid Alam Khan. Deputy Attorney General AKM Amin Uddin Manik represented the state during the court proceedings.
On December 29, a national daily published a report stating that around 30,000 clients’ documents regarding the approval of buildings construction have been lost from the server of RAJUK and the city building authorities came to know about the incident on December 6. However, RAJUK is still in dark as to whether this happened due to technical glitch or anyone did it intentionally, said the report.
Kazi Mohammad Mahabubul Haque, head of RAJUK’s Management Information System (MIS) unit, said that they are trying to recover all the lost documents. They filed a GD (General Diary) in this regard.
However, no probe committee was formed by the authorities in last three weeks, raising questions over the RAJUK’s sincerity to unearth the reason behind it, said the report.
Clients who applied for construction approval from May 2019 to December 6 may suffer in various ways due to the loss of the documents, it added.
Loss of these documents may also spawn corruption. For example, many people want to take bank loans keeping buildings as mortgage. Bank authorities in such case send letter to RAJUK for verification. With the loss of the documents, such clients would face trouble getting bank loans as RAJUK would not be able to verify the documents.
The clients would also be able to temper the design approved by the RAJUK. The RAJUK authorities would not be able to do much to prevent such wrongdoings since they have the design to challenge any forged documents.
Land use clearance (LUC) and construction permit (CP) plan from RAJUK are required for constructing any building in RAJUK area. Traditional method was followed in the past. In 2016, the land use clearance became online initially in one of the eight zones (zone-5). The clearance process went online fully from 2018. The RAJUK started giving construction permit online from May 2019.
The government on August 23 in 2022 approved Detailed Area Plan (DAP) for Dhaka city area. Due to the DAP, the land owners have to build buildings of lower height than before in most of the areas under RAJUK.
RAJUK sources said a vested quarter might make the website dysfunctional intentionally to show that they made application before August 23, said the report.
