SC rejects plea for stay on sealings
The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday refused to halt the ongoing sealing drive against 1,500 illegal colonies, rejecting a plea advanced in unison by the Centre and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
When both expressed apprehension that continuation of the drive would create a “massive human problem”, a bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and D K Jain said: “It will be contempt if the sealing is stopped, which is being carried out on court orders.”
Additional solicitor general Vikas Singh for the Centre and counsel Sanjiv Sen for MCD made a joint mentioning before the court expressing the fear that unless the sealing drive in 1,500 illegal colonies, which housed nearly 40 lakh people, was stopped, it could lead to a serious human problem.
Singh said that the Monitoring Committee is giving orders for sealing which prima facie appeared to be beyond its jurisidiction and requested the court to stay the sealing till Monday when the applications could be heard.
The ASG further said that the Union cabinet had already approved in principle to regularisation of these 1,500 colonies and hence it was now a policy decision not to remove these colonies.
Not willing to entertain the argument, the Bench said: “Until the policy decision translates into a law, anything that is unauthorised as per the present law has to be sealed. If not, then it is contempt of court as the sealing is being carried out on court orders.”
This means that the sealing drive will continue, provided the police and MCD give adequate forces and staff, respectively, till the court hears the applications on Monday. Though the Centre talked about its ‘in principle’ decision not to disturb the forty lakh people living in illegal colonies by regularising them, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi went into the specifics and added several other colonies in its wish list where sealing should not take place.
One of the accusations of the Monitoring Committee is that the civic agencyhas wrongly declared several properties in Lajpat Nagar I & II as well as the Defence Colony stretch from Moolchand as commercial when they are actually not so, thus giving them unwarranted immunity from the sealing drive.
The committee has also questioned the commercial character of the shops under the Defence Colony flyover. MCD disagreed with the committee saying the shops were specifically created under the flyover to generate revenue for the government, though of late this practice has been discontinued as they have proved to be a traffic hazard.
All the contentious issues on which MCD and the Monitoring Committee differ should be resolved by the court, the civic body said.