By Dr. Sanjay Chaturvedi, LLB, PhD.
Just like a traffic police, we need a housing police. Housing crimes are neither criminal nor having soft offenses. Societies, slums, encroachments, no hawker zones, silence zones, CRZ offenses, forest lands, MHADA lottery, Land tenders, Environment issues and violations and there are housing related cases in the country which are above 60% of all the cases filed and pending in courts.
A nodal agency is required to police the Housing crimes. Or shall I say, civil offenses. The hard core police actually not fit to handle or rather not trained to handle civilians. Half of the time, criminal cases have accustomed the police to handle all the civil cases as criminal approach. Co-operative Courts and Small causes are flooded with complains and confusions which normal police can solve.
Encroachments are biggest problem in our country. Slums and Dilapidated buildings, tenancy and Landlords are having bitter relationships. Every transaction in real estate is different and requires a different approach. We have more than 36000 Acts and above 500 Act governing real estate transactions. There has to be a law enforcing agency for all these Acts. Now, soon we will have RERA. To enforce the authority on various aspects like super built up, permissions, layouts and various rules and regulation, we need a Housing Police.
The role of Housing police will be to enforce the rules and curb the confusions and offenses. We all know that going to police is extreme. We require a strong regulator and police to enforce society Act. In societies, disputes often goes to Registrar who often takes longer period even for tinny issues. Millions of cases are pilling which otherwise could have solved by just enforcing law and common sense.
Housing Police is required for civil society just like traffic police which will control most of the cases before they become out of proportions.