The high court ordered Railways to provide individual notices specifying the jhuggi number and give them time to file responses if it chose to issue further demolition notices to the homeowners in the future.

The Delhi High Court ordered the Railways on Monday to retract the demolition notice it had given to slum dwellers in the North West Delhi neighborhood of Shakur Basti. The notice stated that the Railways were to conduct a demolition drive on Monday.

The high court ordered Railways to provide individual notices specifying the jhuggi number and give them time to file responses if it chose to issue further demolition notices to the homeowners in the future.

The decision was made after a petition on behalf of Shakur Basti slum residents who have lived there for many years and have been served with notice that their homes are about to be demolished was heard by a bench consisting of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad. The demolition was scheduled on 21.11.2022.

According to the argument, the high court ordered the railroads to first assist the residents of the slum cluster before demolishing any structures in a 2019 ruling in the case of Congressman Ajay Maken.

Advocate Kawalpreet Kaur spoke on behalf of the locals and said, "that the railroads in contravention of that ruling has issued a second demolition notice at a spot in the Shakur Basti area." The Railways' legal representative claimed that the company will identify the new encroachments and reissue the notification to those who were not covered by the earlier order.

The appeal, which was also submitted through an attorney named Umesh Kumar, stated that on November 3, railway officials posted a notice in the basti asking inhabitants to leave their homes within 15 days as the authorities would not be held liable for any financial loss.

It stated that because Railways was required by the 2019 ruling to conduct a survey and contact Jhuggi Jhopri (JJ) residents first, this notice was in violation of the prior order and was "blatantly illegal, malafide, and capricious."

The request sought to revoke the notice as well as direct the Railways and DUSIB to properly survey all JJ area residents and to provide them with rehabilitation within a month.

Author: Swetha Gunasekaran Advocate