A year after two policemen lost their lives in in Bhiwandi, the state govt has got the HC's nod to go ahead with the construction of police station.
A year after two policemen lost their lives in the riots that stemmed from the construction of a police station in Bhiwandi, the state government has got the Bombay High Court’s nod to go ahead with the construction of the three-storeyed building.
Observing that Bhiwandi was a ‘sensitive’ area, Justice AP Deshpande said that it was in the larger public interest to have a police station there.
Mohammed Rais, a Bhiwandi resident, had made an application to the Wakf Tribunal on August 17 last year, challenging the construction of the police station. He alleged that it was encroaching on the adjacent plot reserved for a graveyard. The Wakf Tribunal had granted an interim relief in this suit to Rais and restrained the construction of the police station on January 12 this year.
It is against this decision of the tribunal that the state government had moved the HC. Arguing on behalf of the state, associate advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhakoni told the court that the tribunal had not found any encroachment on the adjacent plot. The district inspector of land records had been appointed by the tribunal as court commissioner. He had measured the plot of land and submitted before the tribunal that there was no encroachment.
Kumbhakoni said that the construction was being made within the compound wall of the plot, so there was no chance of encroachment. The plot, which was owned by the Public Works Department since 1920, was handed over to the police in 1964, and it had a compound wall ever since.
Police quarters built earlier on the plot were demolished in 2006 for the construction of the police station. Kumbhakoni told the court that if any encroachments were stumbled upon beyond the compounded area, the state government would remove them. The court, therefore, held that the order of the tribunal was unsustainable and set it aside.
On August 8 last year, head constable Ramesh Jagtap and constable BS Gangurde were attacked by a mob opposing the construction of the police station on the plot of land which, according to them, was reserved for an Urdu school.
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