Municipal commissioner of Vadodara gets an earful from chief justice over the slum demolition issue.
MK Das, municipal commissioner of Vadodara, had a tough time at the Gujarat high court on Monday morning, where he was grilled over the issue of demolition of hutments in the Dholikui area of the city.
The chief justice SJ Mukhopadhaya came down heavily upon Vadodara's top civic officer, for not obeying rehabilitation rules and demolishing hutments without providing slum dwellers with proper shelter.
"What would you do, if you're made to stand under the sun," asked the chief justice of the municipal commissioner who summoned by the high court on Friday, thrice. "First you're negligent enough to let encroachments come up in the city, and then you have them removed the wrong way, forcing the court to hear Public Interest Litigations (PILs) regularly," said justice Mukhopadhaya.
The court also asked the municipal commissioner about alternative residence. "Do you have any short term or long term plan to provide alternative accommodation to the dwellers?" the court asked, adding, "These people are the helping hands of the city, and human beings like the rest. Where would they go if their shelter is arbitrarily removed by the authority?"
At one point of time, Bhaskar Tanna, senior counsel, try to interrupt the conversation of the chief justice with the officer. However, the chief justice did not entertain him. After a heated debate that lasted more than 30 minutes, the chief justice granted four days' time to the municipal commissioner, to come out with a specific plan for rehabilitation of these slum dwellers with consultation with the collector and the revenue and urban development departments.
Further hearing of the case has been posted for Friday by the bench.
Girish Patel, senior counsel appearing for hutment dwellers, protested the commissioner's contention that the dwellers were removed to open the canal passing under the colony. Patel said they put the same contention 12 years ago as well, and did nothing after that.
The issue of the slum dwellers of Dholikui is more than 20 years old. Earlier, a petition against removal of these hutments was filed in 1988. Then in 2002, the high court issued directions to the civic body to address the issue properly. However, the dwellers approached the court again as the civic body, a couple of months ago, removed some parts of the colony without providing them alternative shelter.
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