It has also announced it will come out with a list of all areas to be covered by the de-sealing drive in newspapers and on its website, to enable all people whose properties are eligible to be de-sealed to apply for the same.

By doing so, the MCD has gone against a letter written to it by the Supreme-court appointed Monitoring Committee, which asked it to not go ahead with de-sealing, as the matter was in the apex court and a hearing was due soon.

Sources said the committee sticks to its stand as articulated in the letter.

The January 30 notification asked the MCD to de-seal properties falling under Section 3(1) of The National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2007, which covers slum dwellers and jhuggi jhopri clusters, hawkers and urban street vendors, unauthorised colonies, village abadi areas and their extensions, existing farm houses, schools, dispensaries, religious institutions, cultural institutions, storages and warehouses and godowns used for agricultural inputs in rural areas built on agricultural land.

MCD Commissioner A K Nigam has said properties in unauthorised colonies, rural areas, farmhouses etc. were exempted so the government could get time to form guidelines for these areas. But some of these properties had already been sealed by then. So the next logical step, the commissioner said, was to de-seal these properties.

He also said that according to Section 5 of the 2007 Act, the Centre may from time to time issue such directions to local authorities as it may deem fit, for giving effect to provisions of the Act. And it shall be the duty of local authorities to comply with these directions. Nigam said that in the light of this provision, the MCD had on Tuesday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, saying it would begin de-sealing and officials had been given instructions to start the process.