Jaipur : The High Court has given relief to the families settled on the spot in the case of demolition in the name of encroachment. The High Court has banned the demolition of the construction of the petitioners located in the New Sanganer Road area between Mansarovar Metro Station and Sanganer Flyover in Jaipur. Also, in this case, an order was given to issue a fresh notice to the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) Secretary, Enforcement Officer, Deputy Commissioner of Prithviraj Nagar (South-First). Now this matter will be heard on July 5. The vacation bench of Justice Ashok Kumar Jain gave this order on Wednesday on 10 petitions of Sitaram Sharma and others. The court said that it was not tested whether the construction of the petitioners is encroachment or not. Apart from this, JDA was also not able to present the record in the court regarding the petitioners.
The division bench of the High Court did not directly order the demolition of the construction of the petitioners, it only asked to mark the encroachment and remove it. When the issue of JDA’s action during the summer vacation was raised, the court said that the vacation single bench has limited rights to hear such a case, but it has the right to solve the problem of the victims. On behalf of the petitioners, advocates Pallavi Mehta, MS Raghav, Vishwas Saini, Nikhlesh Katara and Vishnu Kumar Sharma told the court that on July 30, 2021, on a public interest petition, the High Court ordered to increase the width of New Sanganer Road by removing encroachment from Mansarovar Metro Station to Sanganer Flyover. In compliance with this, JDA is taking action to remove encroachment, for which JDA gave notice to the petitioners on June 19, 2024.
The petitioners challenged this and said that notice can be given only on encroachment, whereas the petitioners are private landholders. Award was issued for acquisition of agricultural land in Prithviraj Nagar area, but possession was not taken. Acquisition is illegal under the Land Acquisition Act of 2013 and the land was also freed from acquisition in 2002. Many petitioners have society leases, in such a situation JDA cannot issue notice. The division bench of the High Court ordered to remove the encroachment, whereas the disputed land does not come under the purview of encroachment. In such a situation, the construction should not be demolished. Advocates Anurup Singhi, Nitish Bagdi and Shretima Bangdi from the government side said that the land is unacquired, hence under the Land Transfer Act of 1976, the land belongs to JDA. The High Court has ordered to remove the encroachment and has also warned of action against the culprits if the order is not followed.
