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Article in Indian Express, dtd. November 20, 1999
Pay
up or lose house - HC warns encroachers
-By
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
MUMBAI, NOV 19: The Bombay High Court on Friday extended the
deadline for payment of the first and second instalments towards
relocation for the 33,000 slumdwellers in the Sanjay Gandhi
National Park, Borivili to December 31, 1999. The earlier
deadline was till October 1999. However, in a stern order,
the Chief Justice made it clear that "those who fail to deposit
the monies by the deadline would expose themselves to the
risk of forfeiting their rights to relocation".
The court also directed that such encroachers who do not meet
the December 31 deadline "may be removed by the state after
obtained further directions from the court". The bench of
the Chief Justice and Justice A P Shah were following a 1997
public interest petition filed by the Bombay Environmental
Action Group (BEAG) where the high court had declared that
the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, under the Forest Act of 1981
could not have any illegal structures within its limits. Faced
with the huge task of relocating the 33,000 encroachers,the
high court had earlier directed that each family would pay
a nominal sum of Rs 7000 and be relocated in areas earmarked
by the State in Vasai, Kalyan and other areas. At the court
today, State Government pleader R V Govilkar mentioned that
of the 33,000 persons, only 464 had paid the first instalment
of Rs 1000 that was to be paid by August 1999. Of these, only
253 had paid the second instalment of Rs 2000 that was to
be paid by October 1999. The rest of the instalments were
to have been paid by January 2000 and two weeks before the
final giving of the pitch to the slum dwellers.
But since few slum dwellers had met with the deadline, the
court on Friday extended the deadline till December. In another
development, after going through the Committee for Afforestation's
report, the high court observed that the Thane Municipal Commissioner
was "uncooperative to say the least" with the committee and
has been asked to file an affidavit on his stand on the issues.
A copy of the report is to be sent to him andthe Commissioner
has been asked to be present in court when the matter next
comes up after two weeks. While the report was submitted to
the court, sources said that the commissioner had constructed
an illegal paved road on the Thane side of the national park.
Similarly, since the report mentioned that the police were
uncooperative in taking action against encroachers who attacked
forest officials, the court today directed that the report
be sent to the Thane Wagle Estate police station, the Dahisar
police station and the Vasai police station so that the senior
police inspectors in these police stations could file their
affidavits in the matter in two weeks. The court on Friday
placed on record its appreciation that senior counsel Rafique
Dada had agreed to represent the committee, headed by retired
Justice S C Pratap.
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