Chennai''s 2nd Master Plan

Chennai''s 2nd Master Plan
Foredoomed?
Government of Tamil Nadu
The  malaise 
I have always maintained that if the legal class (Bar and Bench) in India were discerning, concerned, committed, honest and professional, most of the problems in the country would have been non-existent. I have done this in my writings in newspapers, journals, and elsewhere (see, for instance, my books The Perfidies of Power; Religion, Caste and State).
But since virtually all professions, particularly related to and under the government are linked to money, greed, position, power, self-aggrandizements, and post-retirement sinecures such as retired judges getting appointments in Tribunals, Commissions, Committees, and so on, even beyond the age of 70, and virtually all these sinecures depend upon political connections cleaning up India’s Augean Stables is a Herculean task.
In one context, when I said in a national daily that India’s failure as a democracy can be attributed to a great extent to a judiciary in disarray devoid of any sense of time and context, a retired professor friend serving on a commission presided over by a retired high court judge phoned me to caution that I am criticizing the judiciary!
In a situation like this of executive excesses, administrative, intellectual and moral turpitude, judicial inertia and insensitivity; and the age-old politician-bureaucrat-middleman-fixer-criminal-mafia nexus, the dangers of which late Indrajit Gupta, veteran leader of the Communist Party of India and well-known Parliamentarian, had reminded the nation repeatedly (I have quoted him in my writings) even a person of unbounded optimism gradually turns "panglossian".
Delhi had its CNG trouble about which I had written. More recently it had and it still has the rather socially devastating and unsettling problems unleashed by the real estate mafia in collusion with politicians and governments.
Given the above background, I was not amused by sections of the Chennai snobs and hacks (and incidentally also some well meaning persons) going ga-ga over its proposed Second Master Plan.
My reaction to the whole issue is still “call the bluff of the white and black-robed buccaneers, catch the culprits, expose them exemplarily”, that in the ultimate analysis it is personal encounters and experiences of the one-man armies fighting the system which add up; so no one should shy away from naming names and expressing what one perceives as unpardonable misdeeds, come what may. With this underlying conviction I have prepared the following write-up. Read it and react to it for whatever it is worth.
Chennai''s problems
Chennai’s problems are mainly because of corruption in the CMDA (Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority), Corporation, Revenue Department, and related government organs, and collusion between builders, officials, and sections of the legal class, some of the self-appointed consumer action groups, and the malfunctioning of the State Consumer Redressal Forums.
Some builders get the Corporation’s Planning Permit for construction of ground plus one storey, and then add more floors. They also enjoy unfettered access to public roads and other public spaces for construction activities without any supervision or intervention by the government leaving such spaces ravaged. The builders’ money bags make the Corporation and CMDA officials feign ignorance.
In one instance (and this is one of the many), a residents’ association discovered that the Permit was only for ground plus one, whereas the builder had added one more floor. He thus deceived the buyers, the Corporation and the CMDA. The owners did not get CMDA approved documents. When the Association Secretary approached its Member Secretary he sent an inspection team to the premises. This was about two years after the occupation offlats. Instead of taking action against the builder, the CMDA sent its usual “stop work” notice to the builder and also to the Association Secretary as though he was engaged in building activities. The inclusion of the Secretary in the notice was apparently a warning by the builder, and probably also by the CMDA for being upright and upfront.
Collusion
When the Association decided to proceed against the builder through lawyer, a trustee of a consumer action group who has been operating from its premises and using its clout, it had high hopes. What happened from the time of giving cheques (for exorbitant amounts) to the lawyer and filing petitions in the Consumer Forums till the time of adjudication of the cases after about eight years was travail for its Secretary between hell and high water. The lawyer never cared to apprise him of the progress of the cases. On the few occasions he attended phone calls he was curt and ended the conversations abruptly. When the petition in the district forum (filed on behalf of the Secretary for his flat in his individual capacity) was dismissed the lawyer did not even care to inform him directly. When the Association’s case was dismissed he was again callous. Despite this the lawyer sent a bill for a hefty sum, far in excess of the amount originally agreed upon, and the Association paid it.
When the CMDA issued demolition notices to the flat owners, since the lawyer was handling the Association’s case in the State Consumer Forum, he was approached to get a stay from the High Court. His reply was he was up to his neck, and he gave another name. As it turned out it was an arrangement between him and some other lawyers, and the cheque was issued in his name. The case was not filed by the Association but by individual flat owners who for convenience preferred a joint petition. Though the entire legal expenses were paid in advance, and there was clear understanding that no more payment will be required, when the writ petition came up for argument the lawyer on some pretext declined to proceed with the case.
If this is the kind of treatment which flat owners get even after making hefty payments to a lawyer operating from a consumer action group, its suggestion, published on its website and in a neighborhood weekly, to citizens on what they should do about Chennai’s Second Master Plan is like devil quoting Scripture.
In a related incident when the Association Secretary referred to the same lawyer a case of another apartment built by the same builder for filing in the State Consumer Forum for deficiency in service, he collected the full legal expenses in advance. When under threats and harassment by the builder that Association was compelled to withdraw the case, the lawyer did not return even a part of the legal expenses collected by him. That is graft and greed in the name of consumer activism.
Couption and malfeasance
In a situation of all-round corruption and malfeasance citizens usually turn to the judiciary through lawyers. But when lawyers lack professional courtesy, integrity and accountability, with some working as “devils’ advocates” (of, among others, unscrupulous builders), and some pretending to be saviours of the consumers, the rajahs will prosper, the prajas will perish, and no Master Plan will work. So, what is important is to have a thorough probe into the functioning of the various “action groups”, government departments, politicians, and the legal class as a whole  (including retired judges having their sinecure in the Consumer Forums), and not to allow lawyers to carry out their professional activities through and from the premises of consumer action groups.
 Accounting for the past deeds

It is also important to make people understand what went wrong with the first (1976) Master Plan, what were its fault lines, how the CMDA will undo the wrongs already done, in particular the haphazard