It upheld the appeal against the order to vacate within 7 days illegally built houses on railway land in Haldwani district. Some people have lived for 50 years in that place, where there are also five public schools and a hospital. He requested to implement a rehabilitation program.
New Delhi ( / ) – The Supreme Court of India today annulled the controversial eviction of a large area of housing classified as abusive by the High Court of the State of Uttarakhand despite the fact that some of them have been inhabited for more than 50 years. The case concerns land owned by the Indian Railways in the Haldwani district, where some 50,000 people currently live, many of them Muslims.
On December 20, the Uttarakhand High Court had ordered the railway authorities to remove the unauthorized structures with a week’s notice to the occupants. Several appeals had been filed against the order. The Supreme Court has indicated today that “you cannot evict 50,000 people in seven days” and “if people have been living there for 50-60 years, it is necessary to implement some rehabilitation program, even if it is railway land.” The judges have asked the Uttarakhand government, led by the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, and Indian Railways to hear their claims and have stayed the matter until a hearing scheduled for February 7.
One of the reasons put forward before the Supreme Court is that the petitioners state that they have paid property tax on their homes for years and that their identity documents (Aadhaar) list that town as their home address. In those same lands there are also five public schools, a hospital and two water tanks.
The legal dispute reportedly began in 2013 with a complaint against the illegal extraction of sand in the Gaula River next to the Haldwani train station. The scope of the case was later expanded to include all the alleged encroachments on the land of the railway station.
