Additional condominium units, 25 GDA engineers are being investigated

Ghaziabad: An internal investigation by the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) has focused on 25 officials who were deputed to the authority between 2008 and 2012. This comes nearly two months after the Allahabad High Court ordered the GDA to look into and determine the responsibility of officials for allegedly allowing the developer of Express Garden in Vaibhav Khand to carve out 134 additional flats against sanctioned 402.

A committee led by the former vice chairperson of the GDA, RK Singh, was tasked by the high court bench in December of last year with “initiating/conducting an inquiry against the subordinate staff who were responsible for monitoring the project, in which an additional 134 units were found to have been built.” This committee carried out the internal investigation.

Senior GDA officials informed TOI on Saturday that the committee had just turned in its findings and that 25 officials—mostly those assigned to the development authority’s enforcement division between 2008 and 2012—had received notifications. The official said, “We are going through our records to see what these employees’ current employment status is.”

The tenants’ organization filed a lawsuit in May 2022 against the developer, claiming that further apartments had been erected without the GDA’s consent. As previously reported by TOI, the infraction was made public when the GDA recounted the apartments in advance of a RWA election.
The Express Garden plan was authorized by the GDA in 2005, paving the way for the development of 402 apartments on Vaibhav Khand plot number 6. The building was finished between 2008 and 2012.

The promoter reportedly removed a total of 536 flats from larger units, such as apartments with three and four bedrooms, even though they did not alter the overall covered area.
The vice chairman of the Ghaziabad Development Authority was directed to submit an investigation report at the next hearing in February, even though the high court excused him from attending in person, according to the official.
Pankaj Goel, the promoter of Express Garden, has requested for the extra units to be compounded, according to sources in the authority who previously informed TOI.