The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the judgement of the Uttarakhand High Court that had ordered the eviction of residents from Railway’s land, which is a significant relief to families in Uttarkhand’s Haldwani area.
“There cannot be uprooting of 50 thousand people overnight… It’s a human issue, some workable solution needs to be found,” the Supreme Court said, as it stopped an Uttarakhand High Court order that had cleared the eviction of nearly 50,000 people who live in some 4,000 homes after a case that went on for years.
In order to prevent evicting people of Haldwani’s Banbhoolpura area in the stifling cold, a bench made up of Justices SK Kaul and Abhay S. Oka emphasises that it is a human issue and that a “workable solution” must be found.
It posted the case for further hearing on February 7 after observing that a viable agreement was required. “There is a human angle to the problem, these are people. Something will have to be worked out,” Justice SK Kaul noted.
It stated that in order to best serve the needs of the Railways department, a family’s rehabilitation must come first.
The court also stopped all construction there and asked the railroads and the Uttarakhand government for their comments.
After activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan made a formal request, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud of the Supreme Court and Justices SA Nazeer and PS Narasimha took up the case the next day.
Following a ruling by the Uttarakhand High Court, over 4,000 families who were residing in unauthorized colonies close to the Haldwani railway station began receiving eviction notices on Sunday, giving them seven days to leave the area.
Officials from the Nainital district estimate that 4,365 encroachments will be removed away. There have been protests against the court decision by the inhabitants, some of whom have lived there for decades.
On December 20, the Uttarakhand High Court issued a demolition order for constructions in Banbhoolpura in Haldwani that had encroached on railway land. After then, the railway officials declared that they had started the process of knocking down the homes and other constructions erected on the 2.2 kilometre stretch of railway land.
The state government says that they are powerless in the situation because the land belongs to the railways, and the high court decided in the railways’ favour after hearing arguments from all parties in a nearly ten-year-long battle.
In a statement, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind said that 29 acres of land were the subject of the dispute, while 79 acres of land belonged to residents who had already received notice. And more than 50,000 people would become homeless as a result.
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The Chenab Times News Desk
