On a day when the Union cabinet extended the protection granted to lakhs of unauthorised construction in Delhi by three years, the Supreme Court slammed the Centre, Delhi government and civic authorities for allowing illegal constructions and revived its monitoring committee which was entrusted the task to seal such premises. Not mincing a word in criticising the government, a bench of Justices comprising of Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta accused them of protecting the vested interests of those having little or no respect for the rule of law and recalled its January 2012 order in which sealing drive in the city was stayed and its appointed panel was asked not to proceed against unauthorised constructions. The bench said that Centre had been playing a "cat and mouse game" with the court ever since sealing drive was initiated. After SC's order, the committee, comprised of former advisor of Election Commission K J Rao, Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) chairman Bhure Lar and Major General Som Jhingan, has been allowed to carry out the task to identify illegal construction and take proper action including sealing. The court passed the order after going through the report of the committee in which it said that fear factor among people for not building illegal construction has 'evaporated' after SC order on moratorium on sealing and civic bodies had failed to enforce law leading to widespread unauthorised constructions all over Delhi. "The committee during its period of existence was successful in creating a climate of acceptance of the laid down regulation in terms of Master Plan, building bye laws and other enactments with respect to land use, construction activities and general functioning. With the embargo imposed on sealing, the fear factor has completely evaporated and all the agencies namely MCD, NDMC,DDA, L&DO are back to their dubious practices and are hand in glove with the greedy citizens. They are having a free run and as a result, unauthorised construction is going on unabated in all parts of Delhi. Although the MCD Act and other regulations clearly define the responsibilities of the agencies, no action is taken against the corrupt official," the report said. Advocate A D N Rao, who is assisting the court as amicus curaie, also backed allegation of the committee and that the panel should be allowed to resume sealing drive. He said that the committee had been successful in creating a climate of trust and fair play in the mind of the public and government officials and its power should be revived. Delhi government, however, strongly opposed initiation of sealing drive and said that empowering the committee to take action against unauthorised construction was arbitrary and against the law and arbitrary. The government said that the order would have huge ramification but the court should restrain from passing such direction. It asked the NCT government and civic authorities to file their response.